John Lancaster Spalding Quotes
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The writers who accomplish most are those who compel thought on the highest and most profoundly interesting subjects.
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The first requisite of a gentleman is to be true, brave and noble, and to be therefore a rebuke and scandal to venal and vulgar souls.
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The lover of education labors first of all to educate himself.
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The will-the one thing it is most important to educate-we neglect.
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They whom trifles distract and nothing occupies are but children.
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If there are but few who interest thee, why shouldst thou be disappointed if but few find thee interesting?
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Culture makes the whole world our dwelling place; our palace in which we take our ease and find ourselves at one with all things.
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Place before thyself the ideal of perfection, not that of happiness, for by doing what makes thee wiser and better, thou shalt find the peace and joy in which happiness consists.
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The zest of life lies in right doing, not in the garnered harvest.
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If ancient descent could confer nobility, the lower forms of life would possess it in a greater degree than man.
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Folly will run its course and it is the part of wisdom not to take it too seriously.
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The strong man is he who knows how and is able to become and be himself; the magnanimous man is he who, being strong, knows how and is able to issue forth from himself, as from a fortress, to guide, protect, encourage, and save others.
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The world is chiefly a mental fact. From mind it receives the forms of time and space, the principle of casualitysic, color, warmth, and beauty. Were there no mind, there would be no world.
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When the mind has grasped the matter, words come like flowers at the call of spring.
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The more we live with what we imagine others think of us, the less we live with truth.
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Be watchful lest thou lose the power of desiring and loving what appeals to the soul-this is the miser’s curse-this the chain and ball the sensualist drags.
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We truly know only what we have taught ourselves.
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As display is vulgar, so fondness for jewelry is evidence of an uncultivated mind.
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Reform the world within thyself, which is thy proper world.
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In giving us dominion over the animal kingdom God has signified His will that we subdue the beast within ourselves.
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The mind perceives … that it is higher than institutions, which are but the woof and web of its thought and will, which it weaves and outgrows, and weaves again.
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Wouldst thou bestow some precious gift upon thy fellows, make thyself a noble man.
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To cultivate the memory we should confide to it only what we understand and love: the rest is a useless burden; for simply to know by rote is not to know at all.
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It is more profitable to be mindful of our own faults than of those of our age.