John Lancaster Spalding Quotes

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

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

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

Dislike of another's opinions and beliefs neither justifies our own nor makes us more certain of them: and to transfer the repugnance to the person himself is a mark of a vulgar mind.

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.

What we love to do we find time to do.

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

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

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.

The highest strength is acquired not in overcoming the world, but in overcoming one's self. Learn to be cruel to thyself, to withstand thy appetites, to bear thy sufferings, and thou shalt become free and able.

If thou wouldst help others deal with them as though they were what they should be

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Solitude is unbearable for those who can not bear themselves.

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

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.