John Lancaster Spalding > Quotes

“As memory may be a paradise from which we cannot be driven, it may also be a hell from which we cannot escape.”
― John Lancaster Spalding

“The highest courage is to dare to appear to be what one is”
― John Lancaster Spalding

“Each forward step we take we leave some phantom of ourselves behind.”
― John Lancaster Spalding

“If there were nothing else to trouble us, the fate of the flowers would make us sad.”
― John Lancaster Spalding

“The smaller the company, the larger the conversation.”
― John Lancaster Spalding

“The innocence which is simply ignorance is not virtue.”
― John Lancaster Spalding

“The world is a mirror into which we look, and see our own image.”
― John Lancaster Spalding, Aphorisms and Reflections

“When we have not the strength or the courage to grasp a new truth, we persuade ourselves that it is not a truth at all.”
― John Lancaster Spalding, Aphorisms and Reflections

“If there are but few who interest thee, why shouldst thou be disappointed if but few find thee interesting?”
― John Lancaster Spalding, Aphorisms and Reflections

“If our opinions rest upon solid ground, those who attack them do not make us angry, but themselves ridiculous.”
― John Lancaster Spalding

“As our power over others increases, we become less free; for to retain it, we must make ourselves its servants.”
― John Lancaster Spalding, Aphorisms and Reflections

“We are made ridiculous less by our defects than by the affectation of qualities which are not ours.”
― John Lancaster Spalding, Aphorisms and Reflections

“There are faults which show heart and win hearts, while the virtue in which there is no love, repels.”
― John Lancaster Spalding, Aphorisms and Reflections

“Care not who is richer or more learned than thou, if none be more generous and loving.”
― John Lancaster Spalding

“The seeking for truth is better than its loveless possession.”
― John Lancaster Spalding

“They who can no longer unlearn have lost the power to learn.”
― John Lancaster Spalding, Aphorisms and Reflections

“However firmly thou holdest to thy opinions, if truth appears on the opposite side, throw down thy arms at once.”
― John Lancaster Spalding, Means and Ends of Education

“If thy words are wise, they will not seem so to the foolish: if they are deep the shallow will not appreciate them. Think not highly of thyself, then, when thou art praised by many.”
― John Lancaster Spalding, Aphorisms and Reflections

“The lover of education labors first of all to educate himself.”
― John Lancaster Spalding, Aphorisms and Reflections

“Though what we accept be true, it is a prejudice unless we ourselves have considered and understood why and how it is true.”
― John Lancaster Spalding, Aphorisms and Reflections

“The happiness of the ignorant is but an animal’s paradise.”
― John Lancaster Spalding, Aphorisms and Reflections

“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, Aphorisms and Reflections

“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.”
― John Lancaster Spalding, Aphorisms and Reflections

“They who no longer believe in principles still proclaim them, to conceal, both from themselves and others, the selfishness of the motives by which they are dominated.”
― John Lancaster Spalding

“They who truly know have had to unlearn hardly less than they have had to learn.”
― John Lancaster Spalding, Aphorisms and Reflections

“A taste for the best books, as a taste for whatever is best, is acquired; and it can be acquired only by long study and practice.”
― John Lancaster Spalding, Aphorisms and Reflections

“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

“What we acquire with joy, we possess with indifference.”
― John Lancaster Spalding