John Lancaster Spalding Quotes
Women are aristocrats, and it is always the mother who makes us feel that we belong to the better sort.
We are more disturbed by a calamity which threatens us than by one which has befallen us.
As memory may be a paradise from which we cannot be driven, it may also be a hell from which we cannot escape.
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.
Those who believe in our ability do more than stimulate us. They create for us an atmosphere in which it becomes easier to succeed.
When we have not the strength or the courage to grasp a new truth, we persuade ourselves that it is not a truth at all.
Education would be a divine thing, if it did nothing more than help us to think and love great thoughts instead of little thoughts.
Be suspicious of your sincerity when you are the advocate of that upon which your livelihood depends.
If there were nothing else to trouble us, the fate of the flowers would make us sad.
Our prejudices are like physical infirmities — we cannot do what they prevent us from doing.
It is difficult to be sure of our friends, but it is possible to be certain of our loyalty to them.
The more we live with what we imagine others think of us, the less we live with truth.
If thy words are wise, they will not seem so to the foolish: if they are deep the shallow will not appreciate them. Think not highly of thyself, then, when thou art praised by many.
The doubt of an earnest, thoughtful, patient and laborious mind is worthy of respect. In such doubt may be found indeed more faith than in half the creeds.
The able have no desire to appear to be so, and this is part of their ability.
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.
The aim of education is to strengthen and multiply the powers and activities of the mind rather than to increase its possessions.
In giving us dominion over the animal kingdom God has signified His will that we subdue the beast within ourselves.
Whoever has freed himself from envy and bitterness may begin to try to see things as they are.
We may avoid much disappointment and bitterness of soul by learning to understand how little necessary to our joy and peace are the things the multitude most desire and seek.
The common prejudice against philosophy is the result of the incapacity of the multitude to deal with the highest problems.
As our power over others increases, we become less free; for to retain it, we must make ourselves its servants.
If thou need money, get it in an honest way by keeping books, if thou wilt, but not by writing books.
When we have attained success, we see how inferior it is to the hope, yearning and enthusiasm with which we started forth in life's morning.
If all were gentle and contented as sheep, all would be as feeble and helpless.
Leave each one his touch of folly; it helps to lighten life's burden which, if he could see himself as he is, might be too heavy to carry.
Agitators and declaimers may heat the blood, but they do not illumine the mind.
It is the business of the teacher ... to fortify reason and to make conscience sovereign.
Inferior thinking and writing will make a name for a man among inferior people, who in all ages and countries, are the majority.
There is some lack either of sense or of character in one who becomes involved in difficulties with the worthless or the vicious.
The writers who accomplish most are those who compel thought on the highest and most profoundly interesting subjects.
If thou wouldst be interesting, keep thy personality in the background, and be great and strong in and through thy subject.
What we think out for ourselves forms channels in which other thoughts will flow.
In education, as in religion and love, compulsion thwarts the purpose for which it is employed.
If we fail to interest, whether because we are dull and heavy, or because our hearers are so, we teach in vain.
