John Henry Newman Quotes

Knowledge is one thing, virtue is another.

There is a knowledge which is desirable, though nothing come of it, as being of itself a treasure, and a sufficient remuneration of years of labor.

Flagrant evils cure themselves by being flagrant.

There is this obvious, undeniable difficulty in the attempt to form a theory of Private Judgment, in the choice of a religion, that Private Judgment leads different minds in such different directions. If, indeed, there be no religious truth, or at least no sufficient means of arriving at it, then the difficulty vanishes: for where there is nothing to find, there can be no rules for seeking, and contradiction in the result is but a of the attempt.

Now it is very intelligible to deny that there is any divinely established, divinely commissioned, Church at all; but to hold that the one Church is realized nd perfected in each of a thousand independent corporate units, co-ordinate, bound by no necessary intercommunion, adjusted into no divinely organized whole, is a tenet, not merely unknown to Scripture, but so plainly impossible to carry out practically, as to make it clear that it never would have been devised, except by men, who conscientiously believing in a visible Church and also conscientiously opposed to Rome, had nothing left for them, whether they would or would not, but to entrench themselves in the paradox, that the Church was one indeed, and the Church was Catholic indeed, but that he one Church was not the Catholic, and the Catholic Church was not the one.

The natural truths of science, physical, moral, social, political, material, are all from God—as those of the supernatural order are. Man abused supernatural truths in the medieval time, as well as used them; and now man uses natural truths, as well as abuses them. I am not determining which of the two abuses is the greater profanation, I only say that the one age is not all light, the other all darkness; and I think that, in matter of fact, more can be said for this age than you seem to allow.

I begin by assuming that the Church is in the world, and the world in the Church, and that the world, whether in the Church or not, totus in maligno positus est, that though it profess the Christian religion, though its millions are separately baptized, though its ranks and professions, though its governments, its great men, its laws, its science, its armies, accept the Gospel as the one rule of faith and practice, still mundus totus in maligno positus est. Moreover, that this is true in all ages and places—so that in all times, including the medieval multi sunt vocati, pauci electi, and the apostolic labour, like St. Paul, omnia sustinet propter electos.

Praise to the Holiest in the height,
And in the depth be praise:
In all His words most wonderful;
Most sure in all His ways!

It is thy very energy of thought
Which keeps thee from thy God.

Firmly I believe and truly
God is Three, and God is One;
And I next acknowledge duly
Manhood taken by the Son.

Now by Liberalism I mean false liberty of thought, or the exercise of thought upon matters, in which, from the constitution of the human mind, thought cannot be brought to any successful issue, and therefore is out of place. Among such matters are first principles of whatever kind; and of these the most sacred and momentous are especially to be reckoned the truths of Revelation. Liberalism then is the mistake of subjecting to human judgment those revealed doctrines which are in their nature beyond and independent of it, and of claiming to determine on intrinsic grounds the truth and value of propositions which rest for their reception simply on the external authority of the Divine Word.

Moreover, there is this harm too, and one of vast extent, and touching men generally, that by insincerity and lying faith and truth are lost, which are the firmest bonds of human society, and, when they are lost, supreme confusion follows in life, so that men seem in nothing to differ from devils.

The Catholic Church claims, not only to judge infallibly on religious questions, but to animadvert on opinions in secular matters which bear upon religion, on matters of philosophy, of science, of literature, of history, and it demands our submission to her claim. It claims to censure books, to silence authors, and to forbid discussions. In all this it does not so much speak doctrinally, as enforce measures of discipline. It must of course be obeyed without a word, and perhaps in process of time it will tacitly recede from its own injunctions. In such cases the question of faith does not come in; for what is matter of faith is true for all times, and never can be unsaid.

Ten thousand difficulties do not make one doubt.

As I have already said, there are but two alternatives, the way to Rome, and the way to Atheism.