John Lancaster Spalding Quotes

In giving us dominion over the animal kingdom God has signified His will that we subdue the beast within ourselves.

It is more profitable to be mindful of our own faults than of those of our age.

The innocence which is simply ignorance is not virtue.

What is greatly desired, but long deferred, gives little pleasure, when at length it is ours, for we have lived with it in imagination until we have grown weary of it, having ourselves, in the meanwhile, become other.

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

The best money can procure for thee is freedom to live in thy true self. It is more apt however to enslave than to liberate. It is good also when thou makest it a means to help thy fellow men; but here too it is easier to harm than to benefit: for the money thou givest another is useful to him only when it stimulates him to self-activity.

What we enjoy, not what we possess, is ours, and in labouring for the possession of many things, we lose the power to enjoy the best.

What purifies the heart refines language.

Solitude is unbearable for those who can not bear themselves.

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.

Obedience is not servility. On the contrary the servile are never rightly obedient.

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

The power of free will is developed and confirmed by increasing the number of worthy motives which influence conduct.

Moral education is the development of individuality, and individuality can not be developed by formulas and mechanical processes: it is the work of the master who brings to his task a genuine and loving interest in the individual.

A Wise man knows that much of what he says and does is commonplace and trivial. His thoughts are not all solemn and sacred in his own eyes. He is able to laugh at himself and is not offended when others make him a subject whereon to exercise their wit.