John Lancaster Spalding Quotes

The weak, when they have authority, surround themselves with the weak. It is, indeed, a vice of rulers that men who have exceptional ability and worth are offensive to them, since they whose greatness is due to their position find it difficult to love those whom inner power makes great.

Be watchful lest thou lose the power of desiring and loving what appeals to the soul—this is the miser’s curse—this the chain and ball the sensualist drags.

How is it possible not to strive to know what the awakening minds of the young are eager to learn from us? It is little less than criminal that we should put them off with foolish speech or lies.

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.

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.

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

A great man, who lives intimately with his admirers, with difficulty escapes being made ridiculous.

The disinterested love of truth which culture fosters is akin to the unselfishness which is a characteristic of the good.

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.

They who think they know all, learn nothing.

A gentleman does not appear to know more or to be more than those with whom he is thrown into company.

The writers who accomplish most are those who compel thought on the highest and most profoundly interesting subjects.

No occupation is more tiresome or depressing than that of killing time. It is the cause of lifeweariness, the punishment the soul inflicts upon itself when reduced to passiveness and servitude.

Not to be able to utter one’s thought without giving offence, is to lack culture.

The test of the worth of a school is not the amount of knowledge it imparts, but the self-activity it calls forth.