John Lancaster Spalding Quotes
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The common prejudice against philosophy is the result of the incapacity of the multitude to deal with the highest problems.
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We do not see rightly until we learn to eliminate what we expect or wish to see from what we really see.
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What is greatly desired, but long deferred, gives little pleasure, when at length it is ours, for we have lived with it in imagination until we have grown weary of it, having ourselves, in the meanwhile, become other.
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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.|
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A gentleman does not appear to know more or to be more than those with whom he is thrown into company.
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A Wise man knows that much of what he says and does is commonplace and trivial. His thoughts are not all solemn and sacred in his own eyes. He is able to laugh at himself and is not offended when others make him a subject whereon to exercise their wit.
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Let not what thou canst not prevent, though it be the ruin of thy home or country, draw thee from thy proper work.
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States of soul rightly expressed, as the poet expresses them in moments of pure inspiration, retain forever the power of creating like states. It is this that makes genuine literature a vital force.
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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.
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If science were nothing more than the best means of teaching the love of the simple fact, the indispensable need of verification, of careful and accurate observation and statement, its value would be of the highest order.
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We may outgrow the things of children, without acquiring sense and relish for those which become a man.
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It is the tendency of the study of science to make us patient, humble and attentive to the smallest things. Is not this part of religion?
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What matter that the man stands for much I cannot love-the moment he touches the realms of truth he enters my world and is my friend.
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If thou hast sought happiness and missed it, but hast found wisdom instead, thou art fortunate.
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As the visit of one we love makes the whole day pleasant, so is it illumined and made fair by a brave and beautiful thought.
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Thought from which no emotion springs is sterile. The knowledge that has no bearing on the conduct of life is vain.
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As they are the bravest who require no witnesses to their deeds of daring, so they are the best who do right without thinking whether or not it shall be known.
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The happiness of the ignorant is but an animal’s paradise.
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As children must have the hooping cough, the college youth must pass through the stage of conceit in which he holds in slight esteem the wisdom of the best.
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Liberty is more precious than money or office; and we should be vigilant lest we purchase wealth or place at the price of inner freedom.
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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.
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Not to be able to utter one’s thought without giving offence, is to lack culture.
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It is not difficult to grasp and express thoughts that float on the stream of current opinion: but to think and rightly utter what is permanently true and interesting, what shall appeal to the best minds a thousand years hence, as it appeals to them to-day,-this is the work of genius.
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They who think they know all, learn nothing.