John Lancaster Spalding quotes
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“The highest courage is to dare to appear to be what one is”
-- John Lancaster Spalding -
“Each forward step we take we leave some phantom of ourselves behind.”
-- John Lancaster SpaldingSource : John Lancaster Spalding (1901). “Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion”
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“We are more disturbed by a calamity which threatens us than by one which has befallen us.”
-- John Lancaster SpaldingSource : John Lancaster Spalding (1899). “Thoughts and Theories of Life and Education”
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“Your faith is what you believe, not what you know.”
-- John Lancaster Spalding -
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“What we love to do we find time to do.”
-- John Lancaster SpaldingSource : John Lancaster Spalding (1901). “Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion”
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“Women are aristocrats, and it is always the mother who makes us feel that we belong to the better sort.”
-- John Lancaster SpaldingSource : John Lancaster Spalding (1899). “Things of the Mind”
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“If there were nothing else to trouble us, the fate of the flowers would make us sad.”
-- John Lancaster SpaldingSource : John Lancaster Spalding (1901). “Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion”
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“If ancient descent could confer nobility, the lower forms of life would possess it in a greater degree than man.”
-- John Lancaster Spalding -
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“When we know and love the best we are content to lack the approval of the many.”
-- John Lancaster Spalding -
“Base thy life on principle, not on rules.”
-- John Lancaster Spalding -
“Reform the world within thyself, which is thy proper world.”
-- John Lancaster Spalding -
“The innocence which is simply ignorance is not virtue.”
-- John Lancaster Spalding -
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“When one sense has been bribed the others readily bear false witness.”
-- John Lancaster SpaldingSource : John Lancaster Spalding (1901). “Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion”
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“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.”
-- John Lancaster Spalding -
“Where it is the chief aim to teach many things, little education is given or received.”
-- John Lancaster Spalding -
“In education, as in religion and love, compulsion thwarts the purpose for which it is employed.”
-- John Lancaster Spalding -
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“If we fail to interest, whether because we are dull and heavy, or because our hearers are so, we teach in vain.”
-- John Lancaster Spalding -
“They whom trifles distract and nothing occupies are but children.”
-- John Lancaster Spalding -
“If thy friends tire of thee, remember that it is human to tire of everything.”
-- John Lancaster SpaldingSource : John Lancaster Spalding (1901). “Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion”
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“What we think out for ourselves forms channels in which other thoughts will flow.”
-- John Lancaster Spalding -
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“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.”
-- John Lancaster Spalding -
“Unless we consent to lack the common things which men call success, we shall hardly become heroes or saints, philosophers or poets.”
-- John Lancaster Spalding -
“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.”
-- John Lancaster Spalding -
“As memory may be a paradise from which we cannot be driven, it may also be a hell from which we cannot escape.”
-- John Lancaster SpaldingSource : John Lancaster Spalding (1901). “Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion”
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“If we are disappointed that men give little heed to what we utter is it for their sake or our own?”
-- John Lancaster Spalding -
“We are not masters of the truth which is borne in upon us: it overpowers us.”
-- John Lancaster Spalding -
“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.”
-- John Lancaster Spalding -
“Thy money, thy office, thy reputation are nothing; put away these phantom clothings, and stand like an athlete stripped for the battle.”
-- John Lancaster Spalding -
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“The important thing is how we know, not what or how much.”
-- John Lancaster Spalding -
“The doctrine of the utter vanity of life is a doctrine of despair, and life is hope.”
-- John Lancaster Spalding -
“It is not difficult to grasp and express thoughts that float on the stream of current opinion: but to think and rightly utter what is permanently true and interesting, what shall appeal to the best minds a thousand years hence, as it appeals to them to-day, this is the work of genius.”
-- John Lancaster Spalding -
“The zest of life lies in right doing, not in the garnered harvest.”
-- John Lancaster Spalding -
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“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.”
-- John Lancaster SpaldingSource : John Lancaster Spalding (1901). “Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion”
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“Those subjects have the greatest educational value, which are richest in incentives to the noblest self-activity.”
-- John Lancaster Spalding -
“The common man is impelled and controlled by interests; the superior, by ideas.”
-- John Lancaster Spalding -
“The will the one thing it is most important to educate we neglect.”
-- John Lancaster Spalding -
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“If there are but few who interest thee, why shouldst thou be disappointed if but few find thee interesting?”
-- John Lancaster Spalding -
“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.”
-- John Lancaster Spalding -
“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.”
-- John Lancaster Spalding -
“It is unpleasant to turn back, though it be to take the right way.”
-- John Lancaster Spalding -
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“Though what we accept be true, it is a prejudice unless we ourselves have considered and understood why and how it is true.”
-- John Lancaster Spalding -
“Insight makes argument ridiculous.”
-- John Lancaster Spalding -
“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.”
-- John Lancaster SpaldingSource : John Lancaster Spalding (1901). “Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion”
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“In giving us dominion over the animal kingdom God has signified His will that we subdue the beast within ourselves.”
-- John Lancaster Spalding -
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“There is some lack either of sense or of character in one who becomes involved in difficulties with the worthless or the vicious.”
-- John Lancaster Spalding -
“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.”
-- John Lancaster SpaldingSource : John Lancaster Spalding (1901). “Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion”
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“Inferior thinking and writing will make a name for a man among inferior people, who in all ages and countries, are the majority.”
-- John Lancaster Spalding -
“One may speak Latin and have but the mind of a peasant.”
-- John Lancaster Spalding -
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“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.”
-- John Lancaster Spalding -
“It is the business of the teacher ... to fortify reason and to make conscience sovereign.”
-- John Lancaster Spalding -
“Agitators and declaimers may heat the blood, but they do not illumine the mind.”
-- John Lancaster Spalding -
“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.”
-- John Lancaster Spalding -
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“If all were gentle and contented as sheep, all would be as feeble and helpless.”
-- John Lancaster Spalding -
“Do definite good; first of all to yourself, then to definite persons.”
-- John Lancaster Spalding -
“A liberal education is that which aims to develop faculty without ulterior views of profession or other means of gaining a livelihood. It considers man an end in himself and not an instrument whereby something is to be wrought. Its ideal is human perfection.”
-- John Lancaster Spalding -
“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.”
-- John Lancaster Spalding -
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“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.”
-- John Lancaster Spalding -
“The writers who accomplish most are those who compel thought on the highest and most profoundly interesting subjects.”
-- John Lancaster Spalding -
“If thou need money, get it in an honest way by keeping books, if thou wilt, but not by writing books.”
-- John Lancaster Spalding -
“As our power over others increases, we become less free; for to retain it, we must make ourselves its servants.”
-- John Lancaster Spalding -
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“If thou wouldst be implacable, be so with thyself.”
-- John Lancaster Spalding -
“Make thyself perfect; others, happy.”
-- John Lancaster Spalding -
“They who can no longer unlearn have lost the power to learn.”
-- John Lancaster Spalding -
“Education would be a divine thing, if it did nothing more than help us to think and love great thoughts instead of little thoughts.”
-- John Lancaster SpaldingSource : John Lancaster Spalding (1901). “Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion”
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“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.”
-- John Lancaster Spalding -
“Whom little things occupy and keep busy, are little men.”
-- John Lancaster Spalding -
“The ploughman knows how many acres he shall upturn from dawn to sunset: but the thinker knows not what a day may bring forth.”
-- John Lancaster Spalding -
“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.”
-- John Lancaster Spalding -
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“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.”
-- John Lancaster Spalding -
“It is difficult to be sure of our friends, but it is possible to be certain of our loyalty to them.”
-- John Lancaster Spalding -
“The power of free will is developed and confirmed by increasing the number of worthy motives which influence conduct.”
-- John Lancaster Spalding -
“Worry, whatever its source, weakens, takes away courage, and shortens life.”
-- John Lancaster Spalding -
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