John Lancaster Spalding Quotes

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

A hobby is the result of a distorted view of things. It is putting a planet in the place of a sun.

Few know the joys that spring from a disinterested curiosity. It is like a cheerful spirit that leads us through worlds filled with what is true and fair, which we admire and love because it is true and fair.

A gentleman does not appear to know more or to be more than those with whom he is thrown into company.

The important thing is how we know, not what or how much.

It is unpleasant to turn back, though it be to take the right way.

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.

The ploughman knows how many acres he shall upturn from dawn to sunset: but the thinker knows not what a day may bring forth.

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 teacher does best, not when he explains, but when he impels his pupils to seek themselves the explanation.

The doctrine of the utter vanity of life is a doctrine of despair, and life is hope.

If I am not pleased with myself, but should wish to be other than I am, why should I think highly of the influences which have made me what I am?

Work, mental or manual, is the means whereby attention is compelled, it is the instrument of all knowledge and virtue, the root whence all excellence springs.

If thou need money, get it in an honest way by keeping books, if thou wilt, but not by writing books.

Altruism is a barbarism. Love is the word.

The study of science, dissociated from that of philosophy and literature, narrows the mind and weakens the power to love and follow the noblest ideals: for the truths which science ignores and must ignore are precisely those which have the deepest bearing on life and conduct.

It is the expensiveness of our pleasures that makes the world poor and keeps us poor in ourselves. If we could but learn to find enjoyment in the things of the mind, the economic problems would solve themselves.

The able have no desire to appear to be so, and this is part of their ability.

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

Folly will run its course and it is the part of wisdom not to take it too seriously.

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

Friends humor and flatter us, they steal our time, they encourage our love of ease, they make us content with ourselves, they are the foes of our virtue and our glory.

Those who believe in our ability do more than stimulate us. They create for us an atmosphere in which it becomes easier to succeed.

As the visit of one we love makes the whole day pleasant, so is it illumined and made fair by a brave and beautiful thought.

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

As memory may be a paradise from which we cannot be driven, it may also be a hell from which we cannot escape.

Education would be a divine thing, if it did nothing more than help us to think and love great thoughts instead of little thoughts.

Each forward step we take we leave some phantom of ourselves behind.

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

Base thy life on principle, not on rules.

The writers who accomplish most are those who compel thought on the highest and most profoundly interesting subjects.

What we enjoy, not what we possess, is ours, and in labouring for the possession of many things, we lose the power to enjoy the best.

To view an object in the proper light we must stand away from it. The study of the classical literatures gives the aloofness which cultivates insight. In learning to live with peoples and civilizations that have long ceased to be alive, we gain a vantage point, acquire an enlargement and elevation of thought, which enable us to study with a more impartial and liberal mind the condition of the society around us.

In the world of thought a man's rank is determined, not by his average work, but by his highest achievement.

The will the one thing it is most important to educate we neglect.

Whom little things occupy and keep busy, are little men.

Exercise of body and exercise of mind are supplementary, and both may be made recreative and educative.

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.

Liberty is more precious than money or office; and we should be vigilant lest we purchase wealth or place at the price of inner freedom.

We may outgrow the things of children, without acquiring sense and relish for those which become a man.

We have lost the old love of work, of work which kept itself company, which was fair weather and music in the heart, which found its reward in the doing, craving neither the flattery of vulgar eyes nor the gold of vulgar men.

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

We have no sympathy with those who are controlled by ideas and passions which we neither understand nor feel. Thus they who live to satisfy the appetites do not believe it possible to live in and for the soul.

Be suspicious of your sincerity when you are the advocate of that upon which your livelihood depends.

Your faith is what you believe, not what you know.

The lover of education labors first of all to educate himself.

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.

Whoever has freed himself from envy and bitterness may begin to try to see things as they are.

Those subjects have the greatest educational value, which are richest in incentives to the noblest self-activity.

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.

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.

Women are aristocrats, and it is always the mother who makes us feel that we belong to the better sort.

The seeking for truth is better than its loveless possession.

States of soul rightly expressed, as the poet expresses them in moments of pure inspiration, retain forever the power of creating like states. It is this that makes genuine literature a vital force.

The zest of life lies in right doing, not in the garnered harvest.

The innocence which is simply ignorance is not virtue.

The study of law is valuable as a mental discipline, but the practice of pleading tends to make one petty, formal, and insincere. To be driven to look to legality rather than to equity blurs the view of truth and justice.

A Wise man knows that much of what he says and does is commonplace and trivial. His thoughts are not all solemn and sacred in his own eyes. He is able to laugh at himself and is not offended when others make him a subject whereon to exercise their wit.

The more we live with what we imagine others think of us, the less we live with truth.

To think profoundly, to seek and speak truth, to love justice and denounce wrong is to draw upon one's self the ill will of many.

There are who mistake the spirit of pugnacity for the spirit of piety, and thus harbor a devil instead of an angel.

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

It is difficult to be sure of our friends, but it is possible to be certain of our loyalty to them.

If a state should pass laws forbidding its citizens to become wise and holy, it would be made a byword for all time. But this, in effect, is what our commercial, social, and political systems do. They compel the sacrifice of mental and moral power to money and dissipation.

The aim of education is to strengthen and multiply the powers and activities of the mind rather than to increase its possessions.

The smaller the company, the larger the conversation.

Care not who is richer or more learned than thou, if none be more generous and loving.

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

Nothing requires so little mental effort as to narrate or follow a story. Hence everybody tells stories and the readers of stories outnumber all others.

When one sense has been bribed the others readily bear false witness.

Agitators and declaimers may heat the blood, but they do not illumine the mind.

We are more disturbed by a calamity which threatens us than by one which has befallen us.

If science were nothing more than the best means of teaching the love of the simple fact, the indispensable need of verification, of careful and accurate observation and statement, its value would be of the highest order.

What is greatly desired, but long deferred, gives little pleasure, when at length it is ours, for we have lived with it in imagination until we have grown weary of it, having ourselves, in the meanwhile, become other.

The first requisite of a gentleman is to be true, brave and noble, and to be therefore a rebuke and scandal to venal and vulgar souls.

We shrink from the contemplation of our dead bodies, forgetting that when dead they are no longer ours, and concern us as little as the hairs that have fallen from our heads.

Our prejudices are like physical infirmities - we cannot do what they prevent us from doing.

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

Thy money, thy office, thy reputation are nothing; put away these phantom clothings, and stand like an athlete stripped for the battle.

As we can not love what is hateful, let us accustom ourselves neither to think nor to speak of disagreeable things and persons.

The exercise of authority is odious, and they who know how to govern, leave it in abeyance as much as possible.

To learn the worth of a man's religion, do business with him.

There are few things it is more important to learn than how to live on little and be therewith content: for the less we need what is without, the more leisure have we to live within.

In giving us dominion over the animal kingdom God has signified His will that we subdue the beast within ourselves.

The world is a mirror into which we look, and see our own image.

The power of free will is developed and confirmed by increasing the number of worthy motives which influence conduct.

They whom trifles distract and nothing occupies are but children.

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.

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.

If thy friends tire of thee, remember that it is human to tire of everything.

If thou wouldst be implacable, be so with thyself.