John Lancaster Spalding

"Have as little suspicion as possible and conceal that."

"Obedience is not servility. On the contrary the servile are never rightly obedient."

"Liberty is more precious than money or office; and we should be vigilant lest we purchase wealth or place at the price of inner freedom."

"The study of law is valuable as a mental discipline, but the practice of pleading tends to make one petty, formal, and insincere. To be driven to look to legality rather than to equity blurs the view of truth and justice."

"There are faults which show heart and win hearts, while the virtue in which there is no love, repels."

"The exercise of authority is odious, and they who know how to govern, leave it in abeyance as much as possible."

"The weak, when they have authority, surround themselves with the weak. It is, indeed, a vice of rulers that men who have exceptional ability and worth are offensive to them, since they whose greatness is due to their position find it difficult to love those whom inner power makes great."

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

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

"What matter that the man stands for much I cannot love—the moment he touches the realms of truth he enters my world and is my friend."

"They who can no longer unlearn have lost the power to learn."

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

"Love finds us young and keeps us so: immortal himself, he permits not age to enter the hearts where he reigns."

"We have lost the old love of work, of work which kept itself company, which was fair weather and music in the heart, which found its reward in the doing, craving neither the flattery of vulgar eyes nor the gold of vulgar men."

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

"Beauty least adorned is most adorned"

"God has not made a world which suits all; how shall a sane man expect to please all?"

"It is held that one fulfils his whole duty when he is industrious in his business or vocation, observing also the decencies of domestic, civil, and religious life. But activity of this kind stirs only the surface of our being, leaving what is most divine to starve; and when it is made the one important thing, men lose sense for what is high and holy, and become commonplace, mechanical, and hard. Science is valuable for them as a means to comfort and wealth; morality, as an aid to success; religion, as an agent of social order. In their eyes those who devote themselves to ideal aims and ends are as foolish as the alchemists, since the only real world is that of business and politics, or of business simply, since politics is business."

"Place before thyself the ideal of perfection, not that of happiness, for by doing what makes thee wiser and better, thou shalt find the peace and joy in which happiness consists."

"The will—the one thing it is most important to educate—we neglect."

"When pleasure is made a business, it ceases to be pleasure."

"Work, mental or manual, is the means whereby attention is compelled, it is the instrument of all knowledge and virtue, the root whence all excellence springs."

"Moral education is the development of individuality, and individuality can not be developed by formulas and mechanical processes: it is the work of the master who brings to his task a genuine and loving interest in the individual."

"To love the perfection with which we do our work, or the company of those with whom we work, is the secret of learning to love the work itself."

"What purifies the heart refines language."

"If thou wouldst help others deal with them as though they were what they should be"

"The first requisite of a gentleman is to be true, brave and noble, and to be therefore a rebuke and scandal to venal and vulgar souls."

"Language should be pure, noble and graceful, as the body should be so: for both are vestures of the Soul."

"If there are but few who interest thee, why shouldst thou be disappointed if but few find thee interesting?"

"We may avoid much disappointment and bitterness of soul by learning to understand how little necessary to our joy and peace are the things the multitude most desire and seek."

"Since the mass of mankind are too ignorant or too indolent to think seriously, if majorities are right it is by accident."

"Whom little things occupy and keep busy, are little men."

"The ploughman knows how many acres he shall upturn from dawn to sunset: but the thinker knows not what a day may bring forth."

"Houses and fields in which we lived and played in childhood and youth with those we loved, grow to be part of our being. The sight of them in later years touches us with mystic charm. It is like a vision from beyond the tomb or a memory of a lost Paradise. But little by little their power over us grows less and the light that falls on them becomes more like the common day. Their sacredness diminishes, their beauty fades. The young birds have flown, the old are dead, the leaves and blossoms have fallen and but the empty nest is left among the naked boughs; and looking on the desolation we feel that we have no abiding place on earth, since the home itself loses its consecration."

"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."

"They who admire and reverence noble and heroic men are akin to them."

"The able have no desire to appear to be so, and this is part of their ability."

"A principal aim of education is to give students a taste for literature, for the books of life and power, and to accomplish this, it is necessary that their minds be held aloof from the babblement and discussions of the hour, that they may accustom themselves to take interest in the words and deeds of the greatest men, and so make themselves able and worthy to shape a larger and nobler future; but if their hours of leisure are spent over journals and reviews, they will, in later years, become the helpless victims of the newspaper habit."

"If science were nothing more than the best means of teaching the love of the simple fact, the indispensable need of verification, of careful and accurate observation and statement, its value would be of the highest order."

"Break not the will of the young, but guide it to right ends."

"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."

"If thou wouldst be interesting, keep thy personality in the background, and be great and strong in and through thy subject."

"No occupation is more tiresome or depressing than that of killing time. It is the cause of lifeweariness, the punishment the soul inflicts upon itself when reduced to passiveness and servitude."

"Beauty lies not in the things we see, but in the soul."

"When guests enter the room their entertainers rise to receive them; and in all meetings men should ascend into their higher selves, imparting to one another only the best they know and love."

"There are few things it is more important to learn than how to live on little and be therewith content: for the less we need what is without, the more leisure have we to live within."

"Perfection is beyond our reach, but they who earnestly strive to become perfect, acquire excellences and virtues of which the multitude have no conception."

"As display is vulgar, so fondness for jewelry is evidence of an uncultivated mind."

"We are made ridiculous less by our defects than by the affectation of qualities which are not ours."

"The narrow-minded and petty sticklers for the formalities which hedge rank and office are the true vulgarians, however observant they be of etiquette."