Quotes from John Lancaster Spalding

As memory may be a paradise from which we cannot be driven, it may also be a hell from which we cannot escape.

Each forward step we take we leave some phantom of ourselves behind.

When we have attained success, we see how inferior it is to the hope, yearning and enthusiasm with which we started forth in life's morning.

The teacher does best, not when he explains, but when he impels his pupils to seek themselves the explanation.

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

The noblest are they who turning from the things the vulgar crave, seek the source of a blessed life in worlds to which the senses do not lead.

Worry, whatever its source, weakens, takes away courage, and shortens life.

Leave each one his touch of folly; it helps to lighten life's burden which, if he could see himself as he is, might be too heavy to carry.

Base thy life on principle, not on rules.

Each forward step we take we leave some phantom of ourselves behind.

If I am not pleased with myself, but should wish to be other than I am, why should I think highly of the influences which have made me what I am?

Few really believe. The most only believe that they believe or even make believe.

Our prejudices are like physical infirmities — we cannot do what they prevent us from doing.

The doubt of an earnest, thoughtful, patient and laborious mind is worthy of respect. In such doubt may be found indeed more faith than in half the creeds.

We are more disturbed by a calamity which threatens us than by one which has befallen us.

Women are aristocrats, and it is always the mother who makes us feel that we belong to the better sort.

As memory may be a paradise from which we cannot be driven, it may also be a hell from which we cannot escape.

Do definite good; first of all to yourself, then to definite persons.

Leave each one his touch of folly it helps to lighten life's burden which, if he could see himself as he is, might be too heavy to carry.

The highest courage is to dare to appear to be what one is.

Friends humor and flatter us, they steal our time, they encourage our love of ease, they make us content with ourselves, they are the foes of our virtue and our glory.

The world is chiefly a mental fact. From mind it receives the forms of time and space, the principle of casuality[sic], color, warmth, and beauty. Were there no mind, there would be no world.

The doubt of an earnest, thoughtful, patient and laborious mind is worthy of respect. In such doubt may be found indeed more faith than in half the creeds.

Education would be a divine thing, if it did nothing more than help us to think and love great thoughts instead of little thoughts.