John Henry Newman Quotes

The ears of the common people are holier than the hearts of the priests.

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

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

If then a practical end must be assigned to a University course, I say it is that of training good members of society ... It is the education which gives a man a clear, conscious view of their own opinions and judgements, a truth in developing them, an eloquence in expressing them, and a force in urging them. It teaches him to see things as they are, to go right to the point, to disentangle a skein of thought to detect what is sophistical and to discard what is irrelevant.

Brutes gaze on sights, they are arrested by sounds; and what they see and what they hear are sights and sounds only. The intellectof man, on the contrary, energises as well as his eye or ear, and perceives in sights or sounds something beyond them. It seizes and unites what the senses present to it; it grasps and forms what need not be seen or heard except in detail. It discerns in lines and colors, or in tones, what is beautiful and what is not. It gives them a meaning, and invests them with an idea.

God has created me to do some definite service. He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission. I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons. He has not created me for naught. I shall do good; I shall do His work.

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

Thought and speech are inseparable from each other. Matter and expression are parts of one; style is a thinking out into language.

It's really not a difficult decision when you reflect on it, ... The situation is just so tenuous with where it's going to hit. You don't want to take any chances.

Let us put ourselves into His hands, and not be startled though He leads us by a strange way, a mirabilis via, as the Church speaks. Let us be sure He will lead us right, that He will bring us to that which is, not indeed what we think best, nor what is best for another, but what is best for us.

If then the power of speech is as great as any that can be named, - if the origin of language is by many philosophers considered nothing short of divine - if by means of words the secrets of the heart are brought to light, pain of soul is relieved, hidden grief is carried off, sympathy conveyed, experience recorded, and wisdom perpetuated, - if by great authors the many are drawn up into unity, national character is fixed, a people speaks, the past and the future, the East and the West are brought into communication with each other, - if such men are, in a word, the spokesmen and the prophets of the human family - it will not answer to make light of Literature or to neglect its study: rather we may be sure that, in proportion as we master it in whatever language, and imbibe its spirit, we shall ourselves become in our own measure the ministers of like benefits to others - be they many or few, be they in the obscurer or the more distinguished walks of life - who are united to us by social ties, and are within the sphere of our personal influence.

Without self-knowledge you have no root in yourselves personally; you may endure for a time, but under affliction or persecution your faith will not last. This is why many in this age (and in every age) become infidels, heretics, schismatics, disloyal despisers of the Church. They cast off the form of truth, because it never has been to them more than a form. They endure not, because they never have tasted that the Lord is gracious; and they never have had experience of His power and love, because they have never known their own weakness and need.

To consider the world in its length and breadth, its various history, the many races of man, their starts, their fortunes, their mutual alienation, their conflicts; and then their ways, habits, governments, forms of worship; their enterprises, their aimless courses, their random achievements, and acquirements, the impotent conclusion of long-standing facts, the tokens so faint and broken of a superintending design, the blind evolution of what turn out to be great powers or truths, the progress of things, as if from unreasoning elements, not toward final causes, the greatness and littleness of man, his far-reaching aims, his short duration, the curtain hung over his futurity, the disappointments of life, the defeat of good, the success of evil, physical pain, mental anguish, the prevalence of sin, the pervading idolatries, the corruptions, the dreary hopeless irreligion, that condition of the whole race, so fearfully yet exactly described in the Apostle's words, "having no hope and without God in the world," - all this is a vision to dizzy and appall; and inflicts upon the mind the sense of a profound mystery, which is absolutely beyond human solution.

God knows what is my greatest happiness, but I do not. There is no rule about what is happy and good; what suits one would not suit another. And the ways by which perfection is reached vary very much; the medicines necessary for our souls are very different from each other. Thus God leads us by strange ways; we know He wills our happiness, but we neither know what our happiness is, nor the way. We are blind; left to ourselves we should take the wrong way; we must leave it to Him.

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

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

From My Life's Work by Cardinal Newman
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. I may never know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next ... I shall do good. I shall do His work if I do but keep His commandments and serve Him in my calling.
Therefore I will trust Him. Whatever, wherever I am. I can never be thrown away. If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve Him, if I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve Him. My sickness, or perplexity, or sorrow may be necessary causes of some great end, which is quite beyond us. He does nothing in vain.

The attributes of God, though intelligible to us on their surface yet, for the very reason that they are infinite, transcend our comprehension, when they are dwelt upon, when they are followed out, and can only be received by faith.

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

The Pilgrim Queen
(A Song)

There sat a Lady
all on the ground,
Rays of the morning
circled her round,
Save thee, and hail to thee,
Gracious and Fair,
In the chill twilight
what wouldst thou there?

'Here I sit desolate,'
sweetly said she,
'Though I'm a queen,
and my name is Marie:
Robbers have rifled
my garden and store,
Foes they have stolen
my heir from my bower.

'They said they could keep Him
far better than I,
In a palace all His,
planted deep and raised high.
'Twas a palace of ice,
hard and cold as were they,
And when summer came,
it all melted away.

'Next would they barter Him,
Him the Supreme,
For the spice of the desert,
and gold of the stream;
And me they bid wander
in weeds and alone,
In this green merry land
which once was my own.'

I look'd on that Lady,
and out from her eyes
Came the deep glowing blue
of Italy's skies;
And she raised up her head
and she smiled, as a Queen
On the day of her crowning,
so bland and serene.

'A moment,' she said,
'and the dead shall revive;
The giants are failing,
the Saints are alive;
I am coming to rescue
my home and my reign,
And Peter and Philip
are close in my train.

Where good and ill together blent, Wage an undying strife.

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.

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

An academical system without the personal influence of teachers on pupils, is an arctic winter; it will create an icebound, petrified, cast-iron University, and nothing else.

Why should we be willing to go by faith? We do all things in this world by faith in the word of others. By faith only we know our position in the world, our circumstances, our rights and privileges, our fortunes, our parents, our brothers and sisters, our age, our mortality. Why should Religion be an exception?

I loved the garish day, and, spite of fears,
Pride ruled my will: remember not past years.

Egotism is true modesty. In religious enquiry each of us can speak only for himself.

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.

Mr Kingsley begins then by exclaiming- 'O the chicanery, the wholesale fraud, the vile hypocrisy, the conscience-killing tyranny of Rome! We have not far to seek for an evidence of it. There's Father Newman to wit: one living specimen is worth a hundred dead ones. He, a Priest writing of Priests, tells us that lying is never any harm.'
I interpose: 'You are taking a most extraordinary liberty with my name. If I have said this, tell me when and where.'
Mr Kingsley replies: 'You said it, Reverend Sir, in a Sermon which you preached, when a Protestant, as Vicar of St Mary's, and published in 1844; and I could read you a very salutary lecture on the effects which that Sermon had at the time on my own opinion of you.'
I make answer: 'Oh...NOT, it seems, as a Priest speaking of Priests-but let us have the passage.'
Mr Kingsley relaxes: 'Do you know, I like your TONE. From your TONE I rejoice, greatly rejoice, to be able to believe that you did not mean what you said.'
I rejoin: 'MEAN it! I maintain I never SAID it, whether as a Protestant or as a Catholic.'
Mr Kingsley replies: 'I waive that point.'
I object: 'Is it possible! What? waive the main question! I either said it or I didn't. You have made a monstrous charge against me; direct, distinct, public. You are bound to prove it as directly, as distinctly, as publicly-or to own you can't.'
'Well,' says Mr Kingsley, 'if you are quite sure you did not say it, I'll take your word for it; I rea

All men have a reason, but not all men can give a reason.

This is what the Church is said to want, not party men, but sensible, temperate, sober, well-judging persons, to guide it through the channel of no-meaning, between the Scylla and Charybdis of Aye and no.

If I looked into a mirror, and did not see my face, I should have the sort of feeling which actually comes upon me, when I look into this living busy world, and see no reflexion of its Creator.

To live is to change, and if you have lived long, you have changed often.

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

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

May He support us all the day long, till the shades lengthen, and the evening comes, and the busy world is hushed, and the fever of life is over, and our work is done! Then in His mercy may He give us a safe lodging, and a holy rest, and peace at the last.

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

When the Apostles were taken away, Christianity did not at once break into portions; yet separate localities might begin to be the scene of internal dissensions, and a local arbiter in consequence would be wanted. Christians

Faith ventures and hazards ... counting the costs and delighting in the sacrifice.

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

Providence has delivered me of every worldly passion, save this one; the desire to acquire books, new or old books of any kind, whose charms I cannot persuade myself to resist.

There is in stillness oft a magic power To calm the breast when struggling passions lower, Touched by its influence, in the soul arise Diviner feelings, kindred with the skies.

A university training is the great ordinary means to a great but ordinary end; it aims at raising the intellectual tone of society ... It is the education which gives a man a clear conscious view of his own opinions and judgments, a truth in developing them, an eloquence in expressing them and a force in urging them.

You must be patient, you must wait for the eye of the soul to be formed in you. Religious truth is reached, not by reasoning, but by an inward perception. Anyone can reason; only disciplined, educated, formed minds can perceive.

With Christians, a poetical view of things is a duty. We are bid to color all things with hues of faith, to see a divine meaning in every event.

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.

Christ is already in that place of peace, which is all in all. He is on the right hand of God. He is hidden in the brightness of the radiance which issues from the everlasting throne. He is in the very abyss of peace, where there is no voice of tumult or distress, but a deep stillness
stillness, that greatest and most awful of all goods which we can fancy; that most perfect of joys, the utter profound, ineffable tranquillity of the Divine Essence. He has entered into His rest. That is our home; here we are on a pilgrimage, and Christ calls us to His many mansions which He has prepared.

Certainly a liberal education does manifest itself in a courtesy, propriety, and polish of word and action, which is beautiful in itself, and acceptable to others; but it does much more. It brings the mind into form, - for the mind is like the body.

In this world no one rules by love; if you are but amiable, you are no hero; to be powerful, you must be strong, and to have dominion you must have a genius for organizing.

Cease, stranger, cease those witching notes,
The art of syren choirs;
Hush the seductive voice that floats
Across the trembling wires.
Music's ethereal power was given
Not to dissolve our clay,
But draw Promethean beams from heaven
To purge the dross away.

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

A universityeducates the intellect to reason well in all matters, to reach out towards truth, and to grasp it.

Nothing is more common in an age like this, when books abound, than to fancy that the gratification of a love of reading is real study.

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

But one aspect of Revelation must not be allowed to exclude or to obscure another; and Christianity is dogmatical, devotional, practical all at once; it is esoteric and exoteric; it is indulgent and strict; it is light and dark; it is love, and it is fear.

It is mutual respect which makes friendship lasting.

Growth is the only evidence of life.

The world then is the enemy of our souls; first, because, however innocent its pleasures, and praiseworthy its pursuits may be, they are likely to engross us, unless we are on our guard: and secondly, because in all its best pleasures, and noblest pursuits, the seeds of sin have been sown; an enemy hath done this; so that it is most difficult to enjoy the good without partaking of the evil also.

A science is not mere knowledge, it is knowledge which has undergone a process of intellectual digestion. It is the grasp of many things brought together in one, and hence is its power; for, properly speaking, it is Science that is power, not Knowledge..

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.

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

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.

Such is the state of things in England, and it is well that it should be realised by all of us; but it must not be supposed for a moment that I am afraid of it. I lament it deeply, because I foresee that it may be the ruin of many souls; but I have no fear at all that it really can do aught of serious harm to the Word of God, to Holy Church, to our Almighty King, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, Faithful and True, or to His Vicar on earth. Christianity has been too often in what seemed deadly peril, that we should fear for it any new trial now. So far is certain; on the other hand, what is uncertain, and in these great contests commonly is uncertain, and what is commonly a great surprise, when it is witnessed, is the particular mode by which, in the event, Providence rescues and saves His elect inheritance. Sometimes our enemy is turned into a friend; sometimes he is despoiled of that special virulence of evil which was so threatening; sometimes he falls to pieces of himself; sometimes he does just so much as is beneficial, and then is removed. Commonly the Church has nothing more to do than to go on in her own proper duties, in confidence and peace; to stand still and to see the salvation of God.

That great portion of what is generally received as Christian truth is, in its rudiments or in its separate parts, to be found in heathen philosophies and religions. For instance, the doctrine of a Trinity is found both in the East and in the West; so is the ceremony of washing; so is the rite of sacrifice. The doctrine of the Divine Word is Platonic; the doctrine of the Incarnation is Indian; of a divine kingdom is Judaic; of Angels and demons is Magian; the connection of sin with the body is Gnostic; celibacy is known to Bonze and Talapoin; a sacerdotal order is Egyptian; the idea of a new birth is Chinese and Eleusinian; belief in sacramental virtue is Pythagorean; and honours to the dead are a polytheism. Such is the general nature of the fact before us; Mr. Milman argues from it, - 'These things are in heathenism, therefore they are not Christian:' we, on the contrary, prefer to say, 'these things are in Christianity, therefore they are not heathen.' That is, we prefer to say, and we think that Scripture bears us out in saying, that from the beginning the Moral Governor of the world has scattered the seeds of truth far and wide over its extent; that these have variously taken root, and grown up as in the wilderness, wild plants indeed but living; and hence that, as the inferior animals have tokens of an immaterial principle in them, yet have not souls, so the philosophies and religions of men have their life in certain true ideas, though they are not directly divine. Wha

I toast the Pope, but I toast conscience first.

Ability is sexless.

The heart is commonly reached, not through the reason, but through the imagination, by means of direct impressions, by the testimony of facts and events, by history, by description. Persons influence us, voices melt us, looks subdue us, deeds inflame us. Many a man will live and die upon a dogma; no man will be a martyr for a conclusion.

A great memory is never made synonymous with wisdom, any more than a dictionary would be called a treatise.

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

He can no longer have God for a Father, who has not the Church for a Mother.

We must make up our minds to be ignorant of much, if we would know anything.

Living Nature, not dull art Shall plan my ways and rule my Heart.

Good is never accomplished except at the cost of those who do it, truth never breaks through except through the sacrifice of those who spread it.

Literature stands related to Man as Science stands to Nature; it is his history.

Dear Lord ... shine through me, and be so in me that every soul I come in contact with may feel Your presence in my soul ... Let me thus praise You in the way You love best, by shining on those around me.

To discover and to teach are distinct functions; they are also distinct gifts, and are not commonly found united in the same person.

Stuffing birds or playing stringed instruments is an elegant pastime, and a resource to the idle, but it is not education.

Living movements do not come of committees, nor are great ideas worked out through the post, even though it had been the penny post.

It is seldom we have the heart to throw ourselves, if I may so speak, on the Divine Arm; we dare not trust ourselves on the waters, though Christ bids us. We have not St. Peter's love to ask leave to come to him upon the sea. When we once are filled with that heavenly charity, we can do all things, because we attempt all things - for to attempt is to do.

And this one thing at least is certain; whatever history teaches, whatever it omits, whatever it exaggerates or extenuates, whatever it says and unsays, at least the Christianity of history is not Protestantism. If ever there were a safe truth, it is this.

Flagrant evils cure themselves by being flagrant.

I want a laitywho know their creed so well, that they can
give an account of it, who know so much of history that
they can defend it.

Doing is at a far greater distance from intending to do than you at first sight imagine. Join

After the fever of life
after wearinesses, sicknesses, fightings and despondings, languor and fretfulness, struggling and failing, struggling and succeeding
after all the changes and chances of this troubled and unhealthy state, at length comes death
at length the white throne of God
at length the beatific vision.

To obtain the gift of holiness is the work of a life.

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

To the irreligious person heaven would be hell.

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

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

O most sacred, most loving heart of Jesus, thou art concealed in the Holy Eucharist, and thou beatest for us still ... Thou art the heart of the Most High made man ... Thy Sacred Heart is the instrument and organ of Thy love. It did beat for us. It yearned for us. It ached for our salvation. It was on fire through zeal, that the glory of God might be manifested in and by us ... In worshipping thee I worship my incarnate God, my Emmanuel

Great things are done by devotion to one idea.

What is more likely, considering our perverse nature, than that we should neglect the duties, while we wish to retain the privileges of our Christian profession? Our

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.

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

Learn to do thy part and leave the rest to Heaven.

A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault.

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

Faith ... acts promptly and boldly on the occasion, on slender evidence.

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.

All that is good, all that is true, all that is beautiful, all that is beneficent, be it great or small, be it perfect or fragmentary, natural as well as supernatural, moral as well as material, comes from God.