John Lancaster Spalding

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

Agitators and declaimers may heat the blood, but they do not illumine the mind.

When pleasure is made a business, it ceases to be pleasure.

We are not masters of the truth which is borne in upon us: it overpowers us.

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.

The seeking for truth is better than its loveless possession.

O brave youth, how good for thee it were couldst thou be made to understand how infinitely precious are thy school years—years when thou hast leisure to grow, when new worlds break in upon thee, and thou fashionest thy being in the light of the ideals of truth and goodness and beauty! If now thou dost not fit thyself to become free and whole, thou shalt, when the doors of this fair mother-house of the mind, close behind thee, be driven into ways that lead to bondage, be compelled to do that which cripples and dwarfs; for the work whereby men gain a livelihood involves mental and moral mutilation, unless it be done in the spirit of religion and culture. Ah! well for thee, canst thou learn while yet there is time that it will profit thee nothing to become the possessor of millions, if the price thou payest is thy manhood.

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

They whom trifles distract and nothing occupies are but children.

Beauty least adorned is most adorned

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

Nothing requires so little mental effort as to narrate or follow a story. Hence everybody tells stories and the readers of stories outnumber all others.

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.

Friends humor and flatter us, they steal our time, they encourage our love of ease, they make us content with ourselves, they are the foes of our virtue and our glory.

Each individual bears within himself an ideal man, and to bring him forth in perfect form is his divinely imposed life-work.