John Lancaster Spalding Quotes

Passion is begotten of passion, and it easily happens, as with the children of great men, that the base is the offspring of the noble.

We are not masters of the truth which is borne in upon us: it overpowers us.

If we are disappointed that men give little heed to what we utter is it for their sake or our own?

Say not thou lackest talent. What talent had any of the greatest, but passionate faith in the efficacy of work?

Unless we consent to lack the common things which men call success, we shall hardly become heroes or saints, philosophers or poets.

When we know and love the best we are content to lack the approval of the many.

Though what we accept be true, it is a prejudice unless we ourselves have considered and understood why and how it is true.

The common man is impelled and controlled by interests; the superior, by ideas.

The world is chiefly a mental fact. From mind it receives the forms of time and space, the principle of casuality[sic], color, warmth, and beauty. Were there no mind, there would be no world.

It is a common error to imagine that to be stirring and voluble in a worthy cause is to be good and to do good.

What we think out for ourselves forms channels in which other thoughts will flow.

They whom trifles distract and nothing occupies are but children.

If we fail to interest, whether because we are dull and heavy, or because our hearers are so, we teach in vain.

In education, as in religion and love, compulsion thwarts the purpose for which it is employed.

Where it is the chief aim to teach many things, little education is given or received.

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.

The innocence which is simply ignorance is not virtue.

Reform the world within thyself, which is thy proper world.

Base thy life on principle, not on rules.

If ancient descent could confer nobility, the lower forms of life would possess it in a greater degree than man.

The common prejudice against philosophy is the result of the incapacity of the multitude to deal with the highest problems.

The highest courage is to dare to appear to be what one is.

Your faith is what you believe not what you know.

If all were gentle and contented as sheep all would be as feeble and helpless.