John Lancaster Spalding Quotes
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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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Language should be pure, noble and graceful, as the body should be so: for both are vestures of the Soul.
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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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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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In giving us dominion over the animal kingdom God has signified His will that we subdue the beast within ourselves.
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We truly know only what we have taught ourselves.
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Rules of grammar can not give us a mastery of language, rules of rhetoric can not make us eloquent, rules of conduct can not make us good.
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The study of law is valuable as a mental discipline, but the practice of pleading tends to make one petty, formal, and insincere. To be driven to look to legality rather than to equity blurs the view of truth and justice.
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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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Reform the world within thyself, which is thy proper world.
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Have as little suspicion as possible and conceal that.
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A hobby is the result of a distorted view of things. It is putting a planet in the place of a sun.
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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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To think of education as a means of preserving institutions however excellent, is to have a superficial notion of its end and purpose, which is to mould and fashion men who are more than institutions, who create, outgrow, and re-create them.
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If we are disappointed that men give little heed to what we utter is it for their sake or our own?
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The test of the worth of a school is not the amount of knowledge it imparts, but the self-activity it calls forth.
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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.
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Work, mental or manual, is the means whereby attention is compelled, it is the instrument of all knowledge and virtue, the root whence all excellence springs.
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What a wise man knows seems so plain and simple to himself that he easily makes the mistake of thinking it to be so for others.
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When pleasure is made a business, it ceases to be pleasure.
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There are who mistake the spirit of pugnacity for the spirit of piety, and thus harbor a devil instead of an angel.
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The test of the worth of work is its effect on the worker. If it degrade him, it is bad; if it ennoble him, it is good.
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If our opinions rest upon solid ground, those who attack them do not make us angry, but themselves ridiculous.
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Love finds us young and keeps us so: immortal himself, he permits not age to enter the hearts where he reigns.