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John Lancaster Spalding Quotes
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John Lancaster Spalding was an American author, poet, advocate for higher education, the first bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Peoria from 1877 to 1908 and a co-founder of The Catholic University of America.

The diocesan offices of the Diocese of Peoria are located in the Spalding Center, named for him. Peoria's Catholic high school for boys, Spalding Institute, was named for him. The school closed in the 1988-1989 school year when it merged with Bergan High School to form Peoria Notre Dame High School. Spalding Hall at The Catholic University of America was also named for him. Wikipedia  

✵ 2. June 1840 – 25. August 1916
John Lancaster Spalding photo
John Lancaster Spalding: 202 quotes2 likes

John Lancaster Spalding Quotes

“The happiness of the ignorant is but an animal’s paradise.”

John Lancaster Spalding

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 199

“As our power over others increases, we become less free; for to retain it, we must make ourselves its servants.”

John Lancaster Spalding

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 37

“We are not masters of the truth which is borne in upon us: it overpowers us.”

John Lancaster Spalding

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 273

“The seeking for truth is better than its loveless possession.”

John Lancaster Spalding

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 182

“What purifies the heart refines language.”

John Lancaster Spalding

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 117

“When with all thy heart thou strivest to live with truth and love, couldst thou do anything better? … If this be thy life, thou shalt not deem it a misfortune to lack the things men most crave and toil for.”

John Lancaster Spalding

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 276

“If thou wouldst be implacable, be so with thyself.”

John Lancaster Spalding

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 76

“Conversation injures more than it benefits. Men talk to escape from themselves, from sheer dread of silence. Reflection makes them uncomfortable, and they find distraction in a noise of words. They seek not the company of those who might enlighten and improve them, but that of whoever can divert and amuse them. Thus the intercourse which ought to be a chief means of education, is for the most part, the occasion of mental and moral enfeeblement.”

John Lancaster Spalding

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 155

“The value of a mind is measured by the nature of the objects it habitually contemplates. They whose thoughts are of trifles are trifling: they who dwell with what is eternally true, good and fair, are like unto God.”

John Lancaster Spalding

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 268

“It is the business of culture to make us able to consider with intelligent interest all real opinions, even those we do not and can not accept.”

John Lancaster Spalding

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 229

“To secure approval one must remain within the bounds of conventional mediocrity. Whatever lies beyond, whether it be greater insight and virtue, or greater stolidity and vice, is condemned. The noblest men, like the worst criminals, have been done to death.”

John Lancaster Spalding

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 196

“If thou canst not hold the golden mean, say and do too little rather than too much.”

John Lancaster Spalding

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 178

“Drunkards and sensualists have become heroes and saints; but sluggards have never risen to the significance and worth of human beings. Sloth enfeebles the root of life, and degrades more surely, if less swiftly, than the sins of passion.”

John Lancaster Spalding

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 26

“In giving us dominion over the animal kingdom God has signified His will that we subdue the beast within ourselves.”

John Lancaster Spalding

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

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

John Lancaster Spalding

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 204

“Base thy life on principle, not on rules.”

John Lancaster Spalding

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 199

“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.”

John Lancaster Spalding

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 168

“To view an object in the proper light we must stand away from it. The study of the classical literatures gives the aloofness which cultivates insight. In learning to live with peoples and civilizations that have long ceased to be alive, we gain a vantage point, acquire an enlargement and elevation of thought, which enable us to study with a more impartial and liberal mind the condition of the society around us.”

John Lancaster Spalding

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 106

“Solitude is unbearable for those who can not bear themselves.”

John Lancaster Spalding

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 108

“It is a common error to imagine that to be stirring and voluble in a worthy cause is to be good and to do good.”

John Lancaster Spalding

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 274

“As the visit of one we love makes the whole day pleasant, so is it illumined and made fair by a brave and beautiful thought.”

John Lancaster Spalding

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 21

“Those subjects have the greatest educational value, which are richest in incentives to the noblest self-activity.”

John Lancaster Spalding

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 84

“It is the expensiveness of our pleasures that makes the world poor and keeps us poor in ourselves. If we could but learn to find enjoyment in the things of the mind, the economic problems would solve themselves.”

John Lancaster Spalding

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 269

“It is a large part of learning to know what one wants, and where it may be found in its most authentic form.”

John Lancaster Spalding

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

“Thought from which no emotion springs is sterile. The knowledge that has no bearing on the conduct of life is vain.”

John Lancaster Spalding

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 243

“A Wise man knows that much of what he says and does is commonplace and trivial. His thoughts are not all solemn and sacred in his own eyes. He is able to laugh at himself and is not offended when others make him a subject whereon to exercise their wit.”

John Lancaster Spalding

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 270

“However firmly thou holdest to thy opinions, if truth appears on the opposite side, throw down thy arms at once.”

John Lancaster Spalding

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

“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.”

John Lancaster Spalding

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 203

“The smaller the company, the larger the conversation.”

John Lancaster Spalding

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 182

“The common prejudice against philosophy is the result of the incapacity of the multitude to deal with the highest problems.”

John Lancaster Spalding

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 180

“If thou hast sought happiness and missed it, but hast found wisdom instead, thou art fortunate.”

John Lancaster Spalding

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 85