“As they are the bravest who require no witnesses to their deeds of daring, so they are the best who do right without thinking whether or not it shall be known.”
Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 139
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John Lancaster Spalding202
Catholic bishop 1840–1916Related quotes
“It often requires more courage to dare to do right than to fear to do wrong.”
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Context: Not without reason did he who had the right to do so speak of the foolishness of the cross. Foolishness, without a doubt, foolishness. And the American humorist, Oliver Wendell Holmes, was not altogether wide of the mark in making one of the characters in his ingenious conversations say that he thought better of those who were confined in a lunatic asylum on account of religious mania than of those who, while professing the same religious principles, kept their wits and appeared to enjoy life very well outside the asylums. But those who are at large, are they not really, thanks to God, mad too? Are there not mild madnesses, which not only permit us to mix with our neighbors without danger to society, but which rather enable us to do so, for by means of them we are able to attribute a meaning and finality to life and society?
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Context: It is easy to understand that the best deed is well done: and so well as the best deed is done — the highest — so well is the least deed done; and all thing in its property and in the order that our Lord hath ordained it to from without beginning. For there is no doer but He.
I saw full surely that he changeth never His purpose in no manner of thing, nor never shall, without end. For there was no thing unknown to Him in His rightful ordinance from without beginning. And therefore all-thing was set in order ere anything was made, as it should stand without end; and no manner of thing shall fail of that point.
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Who dare be just to merit not their own?”
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Vonda N. McIntyre book Dreamsnake
Source: Dreamsnake (1978), Chapter 10 (p. 224)