John Henry Newman Quotes (37 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

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Apologia Pro Vita Sua

John Henry Newman

John Henry Newman: 37 quotes 45 likes

Famous John Henry Newman Quotes

“Growth is the only evidence of life.”

John Henry Newman

Apologia pro Vita Sua http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/newman/apologia1.html (1864).

“Good is never accomplished except at the cost of those who do it, truth never breaks through except through the sacrifice of those who spread it.”

John Henry Newman

“To live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often.”

John Henry Newman

Variant: In a higher world it is otherwise, but here below to live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often.
Source: An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine (1845), Chapter 1, Section 1, Part 7.

“I sought to hear the voice of God and climbed the topmost steeple, but God declared: "Go down again - I dwell among the people.”

John Henry Newman

“Surely, there is at this day a confederacy of evil, marshalling its hosts from all parts of the world, organizing itself, taking its measures, enclosing the Church of CHRIST as in a net, and preparing the way for a general apostasy from it. Whether this very apostasy is to give birth to Antichrist, or whether he is still to be delayed, we cannot know; but at any rate this apostasy, and all its tokens, and instruments, are of the Evil One and savour of death. Far be it from any of us to be of those simple ones, who are taken in that snare which is circling around us! Far be it from us to be seduced with the fair promises in which Satan is sure to hide his poison! Do you think he is so unskilful in his craft, as to ask you openly and plainly to join him in his warfare against the Truth? No; he offers you baits to tempt you. He promises you civil liberty; he promises you equality; he promises you trade and wealth; he promises you a remission of taxes; he promises you reform. This is the way in which he conceals from you the kind of work to which he is putting you; he tempts you to rail against your rulers and superiors; he does so himself, and induces you to imitate him; or he promises you illumination, he offers you knowledge, science, philosophy, enlargement of mind. He scoffs at times gone by; he scoffs at every institution which reveres them. He prompts you what to say, and then listens to you, and praises you, and encourages you. He bids you mount aloft. He shows you how to become as gods. Then he laughs and jokes with you, and gets intimate with you; he takes your hand, and gets his fingers between yours, and grasps them, and then you are his.”

John Henry Newman

Tract 83 http://anglicanhistory.org/tracts/tract83.html (29 June 1838).

“A great memory does not make a philosopher, any more than a dictionary can be called grammar.”

John Henry Newman

Discourse VIII, pt. 10.
The Idea of a University (1873)

John Henry Newman Quotes about God

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

John Henry Newman

The Dream of Gerontius http://www.ccel.org/n/newman/gerontius/gerontius.htm, Pt. I (1866).

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

John Henry Newman

The Dream of Gerontius http://www.ccel.org/n/newman/gerontius/gerontius.htm, Pt. III (1866).

“Now what is it that moves our very hearts and sickens us so much at cruelty shown to poor brutes? … They have done us no harm and they have no power of resistance; it is the cowardice and tyranny of which they are the victims which make their sufferings so especially touching. Cruelty to animals is as if man did not love God. … There is something so very dreadful, so Satanic, in tormenting those who have never harmed us, who cannot defend themselves, who are utterly in our power.”

John Henry Newman

Parochial and Plain Sermons, London, 1868; quoted in Matthew Scully, [//books.google.it/books?id=SYY7AAAAQBAJ&pg=PT30 Dominion] (2002).

“O my brethren, O kind and affectionate hearts, O loving friends, should you know any one whose lot it has been, by writing or by word of mouth, in some degree to help you thus to act; if he has ever told you what you knew about yourselves, or what you did not know; has read to you your wants or feelings, and comforted you by the very reading; has made you feel that there was a higher life than this daily one, and a brighter world than that you see; or encouraged you, or sobered you, or opened a way to the inquiring, or soothed the perplexed; if what he has said or done has ever made you take interest in him, and feel well inclined towards him; remember such a one in time to come, though you hear him not, and pray for him, that in all things he may know God's will, and at all times he may be ready to fulfil it.”

John Henry Newman

Sermon 26: 'The Parting of Friends' http://www.newmanreader.org/works/subjects/sermon26.html (sermon preached on Monday, 25 September, 1843.).

John Henry Newman Quotes about life

“May He support us all the day long, till the shades lengthen, and the evening comes, and the busy world is hushed, and the fever of life is over, and our work is done! Then in His mercy may He give us safe lodging, and a holy rest, and peace at the last!”

John Henry Newman

Sermon 20 http://www.newmanreader.org/works/subjects/sermon20.html (1834).

“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.”

John Henry Newman

Apologia Pro Vita Sua [A defense of one's own life] (1864)

“Liberal Education makes not the Christian, not the Catholic, but the gentleman. It is well to be a gentlemen, it is well to have a cultivated intellect, a delicate taste, a candid, equitable, dispassionate mind, a noble and courteous bearing in the conduct of life.”

John Henry Newman

Discourse V, pt. 9.
The Idea of a University (1873)

John Henry Newman Quotes

“The more I read of Athanasius, Theodoret, etc, the more I see that the ancients did make the Scriptures the basis of their belief.”

John Henry Newman book Apologia Pro Vita Sua

To Richard Hurrell Froude, August 23, 1835.
Letters and Correspondence of John Henry Newman During His Life in the English Church, 1890, Anne Mozley, ed., Longmans’s Green & Co., London, New York, Volume 2, p. 113. http://books.google.com/books?id=uak8AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA113&dq=%22the+more+i+read+of+athanasius,+theodoret%22&hl=en&ei=CeBlTqH1K4m2sQL91pm3Cg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CC8Q6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=%22the%20more%20i%20read%20of%20athanasius%2C%20theodoret%22&f=false
Context: The more I read of Athanasius, Theodoret, etc, the more I see that the ancients did make the Scriptures the basis of their belief. The only question is, would they have done so in another point besides the θεολογία (theology), etc, which happened in the early ages to be in discussion? I incline to say the Creed is the faith necessary to salvation, as well as to Church communion, and to maintain that Scripture, according to the Fathers, is the authentic record and document of this faith.
It surely is reasonable that 'necessary to salvation' should apply to the Baptismal Creed: 'In the name of,' etc (vid. He who believeth etc.). Now the Apostles' Creed is nothing but this; for the Holy Catholic Church, etc [in it] are but the medium through which God comes to us. Now this θεολογία, I say, the Fathers do certainly rest on Scripture, as upon two tables of stone. I am surprised more and more to see how entirely they fall into Hawkins’s theory even in set words, that Scripture proves and the Church teaches. http://books.google.com/books?id=JbwJVBOvECwC&pg=PA66&dq=%22that+the+sacred+text+was+never+intended+to+teach+doctrine,+but+only+to+prove+it%22&hl=en&ei=k-RlTq__FOStsQKOwrCzCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CDMQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=%22that%20the%20sacred%20text%20was%20never%20intended%20to%20teach%20doctrine%2C%20but%20only%20to%20prove%20it%22&f=false
I believe it would be extremely difficult to show that tradition is ever considered by them (in matters of faith) more than interpretative of Scripture. It seems that when a heresy rose they said at once ‘That is not according to the Church's teaching,’ i. e. they decided it by the praejudicium [N. B. prescription] of authority.
Again, when they met together in council, they brought the witness of tradition as a matter of fact, but when they discussed the matter in council, cleared their views, etc., proved their power, they always went to Scripture alone. They never said 'It must be so and so, because St. Cyrian says this, St. Clement explains in his third book of the "Paedagogue," etc.' and with reason; for the Fathers are a witness only as one voice, not in individual instances, or, much less, isolated passages, but every word of Scripture is inspired and available.

Reading

“We can believe what we choose. We are answerable for what we choose to believe.”

John Henry Newman

Letter to Mrs William Froude, 27 June 1848.

“Nothing would be done at all, if a man waited till he could do it so well, that no one could find fault with it.”

John Henry Newman

Lecture IX
Lectures on the Present Position of Catholics in England (1851)

Waiting

“Evil has no substance of its own, but is only the defect, excess, perversion, or corruption of that which has substance.”

John Henry Newman

Evil

“To be deep in history is to cease to be a Protestant.”

John Henry Newman

Introduction, Part 5.
An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine (1845)

History

“After he had gone over the mansion, his entertainer asked him what he thought of the splendours it contained; and he in reply did full justice to the riches of its owner and the skill of its decorators, but he added, "Lions would have fared better, had lions been the artists."”

John Henry Newman

Lecture I, Section 1.
Lectures on the Present Position of Catholics in England (1851)

Justice

“Where good and ill together blent,
Wage an undying strife.”

John Henry Newman

A Martyr Convert http://www.newmanreader.org/works/verses/verse170.html, st. 3 (1856). Also in Callista Chapter 36 http://www.newmanreader.org/works/callista/chapter36.html (1855).

“I do not shrink from uttering my firm conviction that it would be a gain to the country were it vastly more superstitious, more bigoted, more gloomy, more fierce in its religion than at present it shows itself to be.”

John Henry Newman

Apologia Pro Vita Sua [A defense of one's own life] (1864)

Religion , Country

“The world is content with setting right the surface of things.”

John Henry Newman

Discourse VIII, pt. 8.
The Idea of a University (1873)

World

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

John Henry Newman

Apologia Pro Vita Sua [A defense of one's own life] (1864)

Way

“Christian! hence learn to do thy part,
And leave the rest to Heaven.”

John Henry Newman

St. Paul at Melita http://www.newmanreader.org/works/verses/verse70.html, st. 3 (1833).

Learning , Parting

“Knowledge is one thing, virtue is another.”

John Henry Newman

Discourse V, pt. 9.
The Idea of a University (1873)

Knowledge

“From the age of fifteen, dogma has been the fundamental principle of my religion: I know no other religion; I cannot enter into the idea of any other sort of religion; religion, as a mere sentiment, is to me a dream and a mockery.”

John Henry Newman

Apologia Pro Vita Sua [A defense of one's own life] (1864)

Age , Religion , Dreams , Idea

“So living Nature, not dull Art,
Shall plan my ways and rule my heart.”

John Henry Newman

Nature and Art http://www.newmanreader.org/works/verses/verse5.html, st. 12 (1868).

Art , Way , Nature , Heart

“From shadows and symbols into the truth!”
Ex umbris et imaginibus in veritatem!

John Henry Newman

His own epitaph at Edgbaston

Truth

“There is in stillness oft a magic power
To calm the breast, when struggling passions lower;
Touch'd by its influence, in the soul arise
Diviner feelings, kindred with the skies.”

John Henry Newman

Solitude http://www.newmanreader.org/works/verses/verse1.html (1818).

Feeling , Soul , Passion

“Lead, Kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom,
Lead Thou me on!
The night is dark, and I am far from home—
Lead Thou me on!
Keep Thou my feet: I do not ask to see
The distant scene,—one step enough for me.”

John Henry Newman

The Pillar of the Cloud http://www.bartleby.com/236/75.html, st. 1 (1833).

Home , Light , Distant , Night

“It is almost a definition of a gentleman to say he is one who never inflicts pain.”

John Henry Newman

Discourse VIII, pt. 10. http://books.google.com/books?id=YdrJkVPhptwC&q=%22it+is+Almost+a%22+%22a+gentle+man+to+say+he+is+one+who+never+inflicts+pain%22&pg=PA208#v=onepage
The Idea of a University (1873)

Pain

“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.”

John Henry Newman

Discourse V, pt. 6.
The Idea of a University (1873)

Knowledge

“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.”

John Henry Newman

Apologia Pro Vita Sua [A defense of one's own life] (1864)

Books , Faith , Religion , History

“Sin can read sin, but dimly scans high grace.”

John Henry Newman

Isaac http://www.newmanreader.org/works/verses/verse67.html (1833).