John Henry Newman Quotes

God has created me to do Him some definite service; He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission.

To live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often.

Life passes, riches fly away, popularity is fickle, the senses decay, the world changes. One alone is true to us; One alone can be all things to us; One alone can supply our need.

Fear not that thy life shall come to an end, but rather fear that it shall never have a beginning.

If we are intended for great ends, we are called to great hazards.

It is often said that second thoughts are best. So they are in matters of judgment but not in matters of conscience.

We can believe what we choose. We are answerable for what we choose to believe.

Cruelty to animals is as if humans did not love God.

I sought to hear the voice of God and climbed the topmost steeple, but God declared: "Go down again - I dwell among the people.

Purity prepares the soul for love, and love confirms the soul in purity.

When you feel in need of a compliment, give one to someone else.

The reason why Christ is unknown today is because His Mother is unknown.

To take up the cross of Christ is no great action done once for all; it consists in the continual practice of small duties which are distasteful to us.

It is as absurd to argue men, as to torture them, into believing.

Prayer is to the spiritual life what the beating of the pulse and the drawing of the breath are to the life of the body.

To holy people the very name of Jesus is a name to feed upon, a name to transport. His name can raise the dead and transfigure and beautify the living.

I wonder what day I shall die on - one passes year by year over one's death day, as one might pass over one's grave.

Let us act on what we have, since we have not what we wish.

Faith is the result of the act of the will, following upon a conviction that to believe is a duty.

Somehow I am necessary for His purposes, as necessary in my place as an Archangel in his.

You must make up your mind to the prospect of sustaining a certain measure of pain and trouble in you'r passage through life.

We should ever conduct ourselves towards our enemy as if he were one day to be our friend.

There is a knowledge which is desirable, though nothing come of it, as being of itself a treasure, and a sufficient remuneration of years of labor.

How can we understand forgiveness if we haven't recognized the depth of our sin?

Lead, kindly light, amid the encircling gloom, lead thou me on.

And with the morn those angel faces smile Which I have loved long since and lost awhile.

Evil has no substance of its own, but is only the defect, excess, perversion, or corruption of that which has substance.

Health of body and mind is a great blessing, if we can bear it.

Regarding Christianity: Ten thousand difficulties do not make one doubt.

When men understand what each other mean, they see, for the most part, that controversy is either superfluous or hopeless

To be deep in history, is to cease to be Protestant.

By a garden is meant mystically a place of spiritual repose, stillness, peace, refreshment, delight.

Most people go not by argument, but by sympathies.

Nothing is more common than for men to think that because they are familiar with words they understand the ideas they stand for.

If we insist on being as sure as is conceivable... we must be content to creep along the ground, and never soar.

God created you to do him some particular service. He has given some work to you that he has not given to another. You have your mission. You shall do good.

Praise to the Holiest in the height, And in the depth be praise; In all His words most wonderful, Most sure in all His ways.

I see nothing in the theory of evolution inconsistent with an Almighty Creator and Protector.

The love of our private friends is the only preparatory exercise for the love of all men.

Courage does not consist in calculation, but in fighting against chances.

Great things are done by devotion to one idea.

Every breath of air and ray of light and heat, every beautiful prospect, is, as it were, the skirts of the (angel's) garments, the waving robes of those whose faces see God.

Men will die upon dogma but will not fall victim to a conclusion.

It is almost a definition of a gentleman to say that he is one who never inflicts pain.

Lions would have fared better, had lions been the artists.

Faith is illuminative, not operative; it does not force obedience, though it increases responsibility; it heightens guilt, but it does not prevent sin. The will is the source of action.

A great memory does not make a mind, any more than a dictionary is a piece of literature.

Let us take things as we find them: let us not attempt to distort them into what they are not... We cannot make facts. All our wishing cannot change them. We must use them.

It is God himself who can be discovered in the beauty of sensible things.

True religion is slow in growth, and, when once planted, is difficult of dislodgement; but its intellectual counterfeit has no root in itself: it springs up suddenly, it suddenly withers.