John Lancaster Spalding Quotes - Page 4

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

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

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

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

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.

No sooner does a divine gift reveal itself in youth or maid than its market value becomes the decisive consideration, and the poor young creatures are offered for sale, as we might sell angels who had strayed among us.

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

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

If we attempt to sink the soul in matter, its light is quenched.

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.

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.

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.

A principal aim of education is to give students a taste for literature, for the books of life and power, and to accomplish this, it is necessary that their minds be held aloof from the babblement and discussions of the hour, that they may accustom themselves to take interest in the words and deeds of the greatest men, and so make themselves able and worthy to shape a larger and nobler future; but if their hours of leisure are spent over journals and reviews, they will, in later years, become the helpless victims of the newspaper habit.

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

Altruism is a barbarism. Love is the word.

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.

Faith, like love, unites; opinion, like hate, separates.

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

They who see through the eyes of others are controlled by the will of others.

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.

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

Language should be pure, noble and graceful, as the body should be so: for both are vestures of the Soul.

The noblest are they who turning from the things the vulgar crave, seek the source of a blessed life in worlds to which the senses do not lead.

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.

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.