John Lancaster Spalding

Mercenary is whoever thinks less of his work than of the money he receives for doing it; and social conditions which impose tasks that make this inevitable are barbarous.

It is not worth while to consider whether a truth be useful—it is enough that it is a truth.

It is difficult to be sure of our friends, but it is possible to be certain of our loyalty to them.

If truth make us not truthful, what service can it render us?

Great deeds and utterances are now so diluted with printer’s ink that we can no longer find a sage or saint. Our worthiest men are exhibited and bewritten until they are made as uninteresting as clowns.

Unless we consent to lack the common things which men call success, we shall hardly become heroes or saints, philosophers or poets.

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.

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.

The highest strength is acquired not in overcoming the world, but in overcoming one’s self. Learn to be cruel to thyself, to withstand thy appetites, to bear thy sufferings, and thou shalt become free and able.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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