John Lancaster Spalding Quotes
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The lover of education labors first of all to educate himself.
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Great deeds and utterances are now so diluted with printer’s ink that we can no longer find a sage or saint. Our worthiest men are exhibited and bewritten until they are made as uninteresting as clowns.
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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 smaller the company, the larger the conversation.
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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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Inferior thinking and writing will make a name for a man among inferior people, who in all ages and countries, are the majority.
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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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Believe in no triumph which is won by the deadening of human faculty or the dwarfing of human life. Strive for truth and love, not for victory.
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The will-the one thing it is most important to educate-we neglect.
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Though what we accept be true, it is a prejudice unless we ourselves have considered and understood why and how it is true.
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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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They who truly know have had to unlearn hardly less than they have had to learn.
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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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If there are but few who interest thee, why shouldst thou be disappointed if but few find thee interesting?
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It is more profitable to be mindful of our own faults than of those of our age.
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Wouldst thou bestow some precious gift upon thy fellows, make thyself a noble man.
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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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If thou wouldst help others deal with them as though they were what they should be
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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.
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More inspiring and interesting teaching alone can make progress in education possible: for such teaching alone has power to produce greater self-activity, greater concentration of mind, greater desire to learn not only how to get a living, but how to live.
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When the crowd acclaims its favorites it applauds itself.
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Break not the will of the young, but guide it to right ends.
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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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No occupation is more tiresome or depressing than that of killing time. It is the cause of lifeweariness, the punishment the soul inflicts upon itself when reduced to passiveness and servitude.