John Lancaster Spalding Quotes

If we learn from those only, of whose lives and opinions we altogether approve, we shall have to turn from many of the highest and profoundest minds.

Say not thou lackest talent. What talent had any of the greatest, but passionate faith in the efficacy of work?

No pure delight cheers the farmer whose mind is intent on the price he shall get for his crops rather than on the joy there is in tilling them and seeing them grow and ripen: for such an one does not love the land nor his home nor any of the most beautiful and sacred things, but tends to become like the brute that eats and sleeps and dies. His thoughts are with what feeds the animal, and that which nourishes the human is hidden from him.

Mercenary is whoever thinks less of his work than of the money he receives for doing it; and social conditions which impose tasks that make this inevitable are barbarous.

It is not worth while to consider whether a truth be useful—it is enough that it is a truth.

It is difficult to be sure of our friends, but it is possible to be certain of our loyalty to them.

If truth make us not truthful, what service can it render us?

Great deeds and utterances are now so diluted with printer’s ink that we can no longer find a sage or saint. Our worthiest men are exhibited and bewritten until they are made as uninteresting as clowns.

Unless we consent to lack the common things which men call success, we shall hardly become heroes or saints, philosophers or poets.

If thy words are wise, they will not seem so to the foolish: if they are deep the shallow will not appreciate them. Think not highly of thyself, then, when thou art praised by many.

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.

The highest strength is acquired not in overcoming the world, but in overcoming one’s self. Learn to be cruel to thyself, to withstand thy appetites, to bear thy sufferings, and thou shalt become free and able.

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

As display is vulgar, so fondness for jewelry is evidence of an uncultivated mind.

Perfection is beyond our reach, but they who earnestly strive to become perfect, acquire excellences and virtues of which the multitude have no conception.