John Lancaster Spalding Quotes
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The happiness of the ignorant is but an animal’s paradise.
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As a brave man goes into fire or flood or pestilence to save a human life, so a generous mind follows after truth and love, and is not frightened from the pursuit by danger or toil or obloquy.
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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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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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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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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 may outgrow the things of children, without acquiring sense and relish for those which become a man.
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Friends humor and flatter us, they steal our time, they encourage our love of ease, they make us content with ourselves, they are the foes of our virtue and our glory.
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There are faults which show heart and win hearts, while the virtue in which there is no love, repels.
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When guests enter the room their entertainers rise to receive them; and in all meetings men should ascend into their higher selves, imparting to one another only the best they know and love.
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The narrow-minded and petty sticklers for the formalities which hedge rank and office are the true vulgarians, however observant they be of etiquette.
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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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To secure approval one must remain within the bounds of conventional mediocrity. Whatever lies beyond, whether it be greater insight and virtue, or greater stolidity and vice, is condemned. The noblest men, like the worst criminals, have been done to death.
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If thy friends tire of thee, remember that it is human to tire of everything.
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They who think they know all, learn nothing.
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The weak, when they have authority, surround themselves with the weak. It is, indeed, a vice of rulers that men who have exceptional ability and worth are offensive to them, since they whose greatness is due to their position find it difficult to love those whom inner power makes great.
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Those subjects have the greatest educational value, which are richest in incentives to the noblest self-activity.
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The world is a mirror into which we look, and see our own image.
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It is unpleasant to turn back, though it be to take the right way.
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He who leaves school, knowing little, but with a longing for knowledge, will go farther than one who quits, knowing many things, but not caring to learn more.
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To clothe truth in fitting words is to feel a satisfaction like that which comes of doing good deeds.
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There are few things it is more important to learn than how to live on little and be therewith content: for the less we need what is without, the more leisure have we to live within.
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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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The power of free will is developed and confirmed by increasing the number of worthy motives which influence conduct.