John Lancaster Spalding Quotes
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If thy friends tire of thee, remember that it is human to tire of everything.
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We are more disturbed by a calamity which threatens us than by one which has befallen us.
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The pessimist writes over the gates of life what the poet has inscribed on the portals of hell-'Abandon hope, ye who enter here.'
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They who can no longer unlearn have lost the power to learn.
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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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Beauty lies not in the things we see, but in the soul.
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Taste, of which the proverb says there should be no dispute, is precisely the subject which needs discussion.
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It is unpleasant to turn back, though it be to take the right way.
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The world is a mirror into which we look, and see our own image.
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If thou need money, get it in an honest way-by keeping books, if thou wilt, but not by writing books.
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What we acquire with joy, we possess with indifference.
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The highest strength is acquired not in overcoming the world, but in overcoming one’s self. Learn to be cruel to thyself, to withstand thy appetites, to bear thy sufferings, and thou shalt become free and able.
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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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Agitators and declaimers may heat the blood, but they do not illumine the mind.
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The ploughman knows how many acres he shall upturn from dawn to sunset: but the thinker knows not what a day may bring forth.
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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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When one sense has been bribed the others readily bear false witness.
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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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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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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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Solitude is unbearable for those who can not bear themselves.
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If truth make us not truthful, what service can it render us?
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The best money can procure for thee is freedom to live in thy true self. It is more apt however to enslave than to liberate. It is good also when thou makest it a means to help thy fellow men; but here too it is easier to harm than to benefit: for the money thou givest another is useful to him only when it stimulates him to self-activity.
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Faith, like love, unites; opinion, like hate, separates.