John Lancaster Spalding: Trending quotes (page 3)

“Since the mass of mankind are too ignorant or too indolent to think seriously, if majorities are right it is by accident.”

John Lancaster Spalding

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 130

Thinking

“Houses and fields in which we lived and played in childhood and youth with those we loved, grow to be part of our being. The sight of them in later years touches us with mystic charm. It is like a vision from beyond the tomb or a memory of a lost Paradise. But little by little their power over us grows less and the light that falls on them becomes more like the common day. Their sacredness diminishes, their beauty fades. The young birds have flown, the old are dead, the leaves and blossoms have fallen and but the empty nest is left among the naked boughs; and looking on the desolation we feel that we have no abiding place on earth, since the home itself loses its consecration.”

John Lancaster Spalding

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 137

Love , Youth , Beauty , Feeling

“It is the tendency of the study of science to make us patient, humble and attentive to the smallest things. Is not this part of religion?”

John Lancaster Spalding

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 208

Religion , Study , Science , Parting

“In the world of thought a man’s rank is determined, not by his average work, but by his highest achievement.”

John Lancaster Spalding

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 13

World

“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.”

John Lancaster Spalding

Aphorisms and Reflections (1901)

Love , Men

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

John Lancaster Spalding

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 24

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

John Lancaster Spalding

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 163

“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.”

John Lancaster Spalding

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

Learning

“One may speak Latin and have but the mind of a peasant.”

John Lancaster Spalding

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 234

“The exercise of authority is odious, and they who know how to govern, leave it in abeyance as much as possible.”

John Lancaster Spalding

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 81

Exercises

“He who leaves school, knowing little, but with a longing for knowledge, will go farther than one who quits, knowing many things, but not caring to learn more.”

John Lancaster Spalding

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 223

School , Knowledge , Learning

“There are few things it is more important to learn than how to live on little and be therewith content: for the less we need what is without, the more leisure have we to live within.”

John Lancaster Spalding

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 160

Learning

“The zest of life lies in right doing, not in the garnered harvest.”

John Lancaster Spalding

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 71

Life

“We shrink from the contemplation of our dead bodies, forgetting that when dead they are no longer ours, and concern us as little as the hairs that have fallen from our heads.”

John Lancaster Spalding

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 230

Dead , Forgetting

“The aim of education is to strengthen and multiply the powers and activities of the mind rather than to increase its possessions.”

John Lancaster Spalding

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 230

Education

“A hobby is the result of a distorted view of things. It is putting a planet in the place of a sun.”

John Lancaster Spalding

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 245

Sun

“What we acquire with joy, we possess with indifference.”

John Lancaster Spalding

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 202

Joy , Indifference

“If ancient descent could confer nobility, the lower forms of life would possess it in a greater degree than man.”

John Lancaster Spalding

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 181

Life

“If thou wouldst help others deal with them as though they were what they should be”

John Lancaster Spalding

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 119

Help

“The doctrine of the utter vanity of life is a doctrine of despair, and life is hope.”

John Lancaster Spalding

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 32

Life , Hope , Despair