John Lancaster Spalding Quotes

The highest courage is to dare to appear to be what one is

Women are aristocrats, and it is always the mother who makes us feel that we belong to the better sort.

Each forward step we take we leave some phantom of ourselves behind.

We are more disturbed by a calamity which threatens us than by one which has befallen us.

As memory may be a paradise from which we cannot be driven, it may also be a hell from which we cannot escape.

Dislike of another's opinions and beliefs neither justifies our own nor makes us more certain of them: and to transfer the repugnance to the person himself is a mark of a vulgar mind.

Your faith is what you believe, not what you know.

What we love to do we find time to do.

Those who believe in our ability do more than stimulate us. They create for us an atmosphere in which it becomes easier to succeed.

When we have not the strength or the courage to grasp a new truth, we persuade ourselves that it is not a truth at all.

Education would be a divine thing, if it did nothing more than help us to think and love great thoughts instead of little thoughts.

The doubt of an earnest, thoughtful, patient and laborious mind is worthy of respect. In such doubt may be found indeed more faith than in half the creeds.

It is difficult to be sure of our friends, but it is possible to be certain of our loyalty to them.

If thy words are wise, they will not seem so to the foolish: if they are deep the shallow will not appreciate them. Think not highly of thyself, then, when thou art praised by many.

We have no sympathy with those who are controlled by ideas and passions which we neither understand nor feel. Thus they who live to satisfy the appetites do not believe it possible to live in and for the soul.

Be suspicious of your sincerity when you are the advocate of that upon which your livelihood depends.

If there were nothing else to trouble us, the fate of the flowers would make us sad.

Our prejudices are like physical infirmities — we cannot do what they prevent us from doing.

The more we live with what we imagine others think of us, the less we live with truth.

The zest of life lies in right doing, not in the garnered harvest.

The able have no desire to appear to be so, and this is part of their ability.

In giving us dominion over the animal kingdom God has signified His will that we subdue the beast within ourselves.

We may avoid much disappointment and bitterness of soul by learning to understand how little necessary to our joy and peace are the things the multitude most desire and seek.

If all were gentle and contented as sheep, all would be as feeble and helpless.

Whoever has freed himself from envy and bitterness may begin to try to see things as they are.

The fields and the flowers and the beautiful faces are not ours, as the stars and the hills and the sunlight are not ours, but they give us fresh and happy thoughts.

The aim of education is to strengthen and multiply the powers and activities of the mind rather than to increase its possessions.

The common man is impelled and controlled by interests; the superior, by ideas.

The world is chiefly a mental fact. From mind it receives the forms of time and space, the principle of casuality[sic], color, warmth, and beauty. Were there no mind, there would be no world.

It is a common error to imagine that to be stirring and voluble in a worthy cause is to be good and to do good.

What we think out for ourselves forms channels in which other thoughts will flow.

They whom trifles distract and nothing occupies are but children.

If we fail to interest, whether because we are dull and heavy, or because our hearers are so, we teach in vain.

In education, as in religion and love, compulsion thwarts the purpose for which it is employed.

Where it is the chief aim to teach many things, little education is given or received.

He who leaves school, knowing little, but with a longing for knowledge, will go farther than one who quits, knowing many things, but not caring to learn more.

The innocence which is simply ignorance is not virtue.

Reform the world within thyself, which is thy proper world.

Base thy life on principle, not on rules.

If ancient descent could confer nobility, the lower forms of life would possess it in a greater degree than man.

The common prejudice against philosophy is the result of the incapacity of the multitude to deal with the highest problems.

The study of science, dissociated from that of philosophy and literature, narrows the mind and weakens the power to love and follow the noblest ideals: for the truths which science ignores and must ignore are precisely those which have the deepest bearing on life and conduct.

One may speak Latin and have but the mind of a peasant.

Inferior thinking and writing will make a name for a man among inferior people, who in all ages and countries, are the majority.

There is some lack either of sense or of character in one who becomes involved in difficulties with the worthless or the vicious.

It is unpleasant to turn back, though it be to take the right way.

The writers who accomplish most are those who compel thought on the highest and most profoundly interesting subjects.

If thou wouldst be interesting, keep thy personality in the background, and be great and strong in and through thy subject.

If there are but few who interest thee, why shouldst thou be disappointed if but few find thee interesting?

The will the one thing it is most important to educate we neglect.