John Lancaster Spalding Quotes
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Base thy life on principle, not on rules.
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We neglect the opportunities which are always present, and imagine that if those that are rare were offered, we should put them to good use. Thus we waste life waiting for what if it came we should be unprepared for.
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In education, as in religion and love, compulsion thwarts the purpose for which it is employed.
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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.
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If we learn from those only, of whose lives and opinions we altogether approve, we shall have to turn from many of the highest and profoundest minds.
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We are made ridiculous less by our defects than by the affectation of qualities which are not ours.
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Philosophers and theologians, like the vulgar, prefer contradiction to enlightenment. They refute one another more gladly than they learn from one another, as though man lived by shunning error and not by loving truth. Accept their formulas and they sink back into their easy chairs and comfortably doze.
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When we know and love the best we are content to lack the approval of the many.
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Few know the joys that spring from a disinterested curiosity. It is like a cheerful spirit that leads us through worlds filled with what is true and fair, which we admire and love because it is true and fair.
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When we have attained success, we see how inferior it is to the hope, yearning and enthusiasm with which we started forth in life’s morning.
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Unless we consent to lack the common things which men call success, we shall hardly become heroes or saints, philosophers or poets.
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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.
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One may speak Latin and have but the mind of a peasant.
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The smaller the company, the larger the conversation.
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Drunkards and sensualists have become heroes and saints; but sluggards have never risen to the significance and worth of human beings. Sloth enfeebles the root of life, and degrades more surely, if less swiftly, than the sins of passion.
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If we attempt to sink the soul in matter, its light is quenched.
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Whom little things occupy and keep busy, are little men.
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However firmly thou holdest to thy opinions, if truth appears on the opposite side, throw down thy arms at once.
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When with all thy heart thou strivest to live with truth and love, couldst thou do anything better? … If this be thy life, thou shalt not deem it a misfortune to lack the things men most crave and toil for.
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It is the expensiveness of our pleasures that makes the world poor and keeps us poor in ourselves. If we could but learn to find enjoyment in the things of the mind, the economic problems would solve themselves.
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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.
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When the mind has grasped the matter, words come like flowers at the call of spring.
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As display is vulgar, so fondness for jewelry is evidence of an uncultivated mind.
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Education would be a divine thing, if it did nothing more than help us to think and love great thoughts instead of little thoughts.