John Lancaster Spalding Quotes

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

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

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

If there were nothing else to trouble us, the fate of the flowers would make us sad.

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 innocence which is simply ignorance is not virtue.

If our opinions rest upon solid ground, those who attack them do not make us angry, but themselves ridiculous.

If there are but few who interest thee, why shouldst thou be disappointed if but few find thee interesting?

We are made ridiculous less by our defects than by the affectation of qualities which are not ours.

They who can no longer unlearn have lost the power to learn.

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.

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

As our power over others increases, we become less free; for to retain it, we must make ourselves its servants.

There are faults which show heart and win hearts, while the virtue in which there is no love, repels.

The seeking for truth is better than its loveless possession.

If we learn from those only, of whose lives and opinions we altogether approve, we shall have to turn from many of the highest and profoundest minds.

What we acquire with joy, we possess with indifference.

They who no longer believe in principles still proclaim them, to conceal, both from themselves and others, the selfishness of the motives by which they are dominated.

As they are the bravest who require no witnesses to their deeds of daring, so they are the best who do right without thinking whether or not it shall be known.

A taste for the best books, as a taste for whatever is best, is acquired; and it can be acquired only by long study and practice.

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.

However firmly thou holdest to thy opinions, if truth appears on the opposite side, throw down thy arms at once.

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

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.

They who truly know have had to unlearn hardly less than they have had to learn.

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

The happiness of the ignorant is but an animal’s paradise.