John Lancaster Spalding

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

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

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.

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.

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

Have as little suspicion as possible and conceal that.

Make thyself perfect; others, happy.

If thou wouldst be implacable, be so with thyself.

We neglect the opportunities which are always present, and imagine that if those that are rare were offered, we should put them to good use. Thus we waste life waiting for what if it came we should be unprepared for.

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.

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

It is more profitable to be mindful of our own faults than of those of our age.

If a state should pass laws forbidding its citizens to become wise and holy, it would be made a byword for all time. But this, in effect, is what our commercial, social, and political systems do. They compel the sacrifice of mental and …

If we attempt to sink the soul in matter, its light is quenched.

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.

The best book is but the record of the best life.

They who truly know have had to unlearn hardly less than they have had to learn.

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

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

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

It is not difficult to grasp and express thoughts that float on the stream of current opinion: but to think and rightly utter what is permanently true and interesting, what shall appeal to the best minds a thousand years hence, as it …

The doctrine of the utter vanity of life is a doctrine of despair, and life is hope.

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