“The root of all difficulties is a lack of the sense of the Presence of God.”
“There is some lack either of sense or of character in one who becomes involved in difficulties with the worthless or the vicious.”
Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 226
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John Lancaster Spalding 202
Catholic bishop 1840–1916Related quotes

Letter to Phyllis Wright (January 24, 1936), published in Dear Professor Einstein: Albert Einstein's Letters to and from Children (Prometheus Books, 2002), p. 129
1930s

“Our lack of confidence is not the result of difficulty. The difficulty comes from our lack of confidence.”
At quanto ego de illis melius existimo! ipsi quoque haec possunt facere, sed nolunt. Denique quem umquam ista destituere temptantem? cui non faciliora apparuere in actu? Non quia difficilia sunt non audemus, sed quia non audemus difficilia sunt.
Also translated as: It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare, but because we do not dare, things are difficult.
Letter CIV, verse 26
Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius)
Context: But how much more highly do I think of these men! They can do these things, but decline to do them. To whom that ever tried have these tasks proved false? To what man did they not seem easier in the doing? Our lack of confidence is not the result of difficulty. The difficulty comes from our lack of confidence.

On how a written work may speak to you in “Nilo Cruz by Emily Mann” https://bombmagazine.org/articles/nilo-cruz/ in BOMB Magazine (2004 Jan 1)

Ibn Shu’ba al-Harrani, Tuhaf al-'Uqul, p. 382
Regarding Knowledge & Wisdom, General