John Lancaster Spalding (1840 – 1916)
First bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Peoria from 1877 to 1908, a notable scholarly writer of the time and, a co-founder of The Catholic University of America.
What we acquire with joy, we possess with indifference.
True readers ... are ready to go through a whole volume, if there be but hope of finding in it a single genuine thought or the mere suggestion even of a truth which has some fresh application to life.
To secure approval one must remain within the bounds of conventional mediocrity. Whatever lies beyond, whether it be greater insight and virtue, or greater stolidity and vice, is condemned. The noblest men, like the worst criminals, have been done to death.
There are who mistake the spirit of pugnacity for the spirit of piety, and thus harbor a devil instead of an angel.
In our thrifty populations of merchants, manufacturers, politicians, and professional men, there is little sense for beauty, little pure thought, little genuine culture; but they are prosperous and self-satisfied.
The disinterested love of truth which culture fosters is akin to the unselfishness which is a characteristic of the good.
If thy friends tire of thee, remember that it is human to tire of everything.
A liberal education is that which aims to develop faculty without ulterior views of profession or other means of gaining a livelihood. It considers man an end in himself and not an instrument whereby something is to be wrought. Its ideal is human perfection.
Where it is the chief aim to teach many things, little education is given or received.
We may outgrow the things of children, without acquiring sense and relish for those which become a man.
There are faults which show heart and win hearts, while the virtue in which there is no love, repels.
The mind perceives ... that it is higher than institutions, which are but the woof and web of its thought and will, which it weaves and outgrows, and weaves again.
God has not made a world which suits all; how shall a sane man expect to please all?
Altruism is a barbarism. Love is the word.
If the young are watched too closely, if they are kept habitually under surveillance, the spring of action is weakened, the power of initiative is destroyed, and they become mediocre, commonplace, mechanical men and women, from whom nothing excellent or distinguished may be expected. Parents and teachers ... must so deal with the young as to bring them little by little under the control of reason and conscience; and in this, nothing thwarts more surely than excessive supervision, for it draws attention from the inner view and voice to the eyes of the watchers. It may cultivate a love of decency and propriety, but not the creative feeling that we live with God and that righteousness is life.
As display is vulgar, so fondness for jewelry is evidence of an uncultivated mind.
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 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.
If we attempt to sink the soul in matter, its light is quenched.
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.