John Lancaster Spalding: Trending quotes (page 2)

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

John Lancaster Spalding

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 161

Perfection

“The strong man is he who knows how and is able to become and be himself; the magnanimous man is he who, being strong, knows how and is able to issue forth from himself, as from a fortress, to guide, protect, encourage, and save others.”

John Lancaster Spalding

Source: Means and Ends of Education (1895), Chapter 1 "Truth and Love"

Strong

“The pessimist writes over the gates of life what the poet has inscribed on the portals of hell—”Abandon hope, ye who enter here.”

John Lancaster Spalding

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 189

Life , Hope , Hell

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

John Lancaster Spalding

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 167

Truth

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

John Lancaster Spalding

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 212

Love , Truth

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

John Lancaster Spalding

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 192

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

John Lancaster Spalding

Aphorisms and Reflections (1901)

Age

“When we know and love the best we are content to lack the approval of the many.”

John Lancaster Spalding

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 171

Love

“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.”

John Lancaster Spalding

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 116

Love , Education

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

John Lancaster Spalding

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 169

Faith , Passion

“Altruism is a barbarism. Love is the word.”

John Lancaster Spalding

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 170

Love

“If we fail to interest, whether because we are dull and heavy, or because our hearers are so, we teach in vain.”

John Lancaster Spalding

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 241

“There are faults which show heart and win hearts, while the virtue in which there is no love, repels.”

John Lancaster Spalding

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 80

Love , Heart

“It is the business of the teacher … to fortify reason and to make conscience sovereign.”

John Lancaster Spalding

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 242

Business , Teachers

“Work, mental or manual, is the means whereby attention is compelled, it is the instrument of all knowledge and virtue, the root whence all excellence springs.”

John Lancaster Spalding

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 116

Spring , Knowledge

“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.”

John Lancaster Spalding

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 172

Soul , Literature

“If thou need money, get it in an honest way—by keeping books, if thou wilt, but not by writing books.”

John Lancaster Spalding

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 25

Money , Books , Way

“Few know the joys that spring from a disinterested curiosity. It is like a cheerful spirit that leads us through worlds filled with what is true and fair, which we admire and love because it is true and fair.”

John Lancaster Spalding

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 15

Love , World , Spring , Joy

“Passion is begotten of passion, and it easily happens, as with the children of great men, that the base is the offspring of the noble.”

John Lancaster Spalding

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 16

Men , Children , Passion

“Language should be pure, noble and graceful, as the body should be so: for both are vestures of the Soul.”

John Lancaster Spalding

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 127

Soul