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We are made ridiculous less by our defects than by the affectation of qualities which are not ours.
John Lancaster Spalding
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John Lancaster Spalding
Age: 76 †
Born: 1840
Born: June 2
Died: 1916
Died: August 25
Author
Biographer
Catholic Priest
Lebanon
Kentucky
Ridiculous
Quality
Less
Made
Affectation
Defects
Qualities
More quotes by John Lancaster Spalding
If there were nothing else to trouble us, the fate of the flowers would make us sad.
John Lancaster Spalding
The aim of education is to strengthen and multiply the powers and activities of the mind rather than to increase its possessions.
John Lancaster Spalding
The teacher does best, not when he explains, but when he impels his pupils to seek themselves the explanation.
John Lancaster Spalding
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.
John Lancaster Spalding
They who see through the eyes of others are controlled by the will of others.
John Lancaster Spalding
Education would be a divine thing, if it did nothing more than help us to think and love great thoughts instead of little thoughts.
John Lancaster Spalding
Altruism is a barbarism. Love is the word.
John Lancaster Spalding
The innocence which is simply ignorance is not virtue.
John Lancaster Spalding
As we can not love what is hateful, let us accustom ourselves neither to think nor to speak of disagreeable things and persons.
John Lancaster Spalding
As a brave man goes into fire or flood or pestilence to save a human life, so a generous mind follows after truth and love, and is not frightened from the pursuit by danger or toil or obloquy.
John Lancaster Spalding
We have no sympathy with those who are controlled by ideas and passions which we neither understand nor feel. Thus they who live to satisfy the appetites do not believe it possible to live in and for the soul.
John Lancaster Spalding
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.
John Lancaster Spalding
Few know the joys that spring from a disinterested curiosity. It is like a cheerful spirit that leads us through worlds filled with what is true and fair, which we admire and love because it is true and fair.
John Lancaster Spalding
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.
John Lancaster Spalding
The exercise of authority is odious, and they who know how to govern, leave it in abeyance as much as possible.
John Lancaster Spalding
They who can no longer unlearn have lost the power to learn.
John Lancaster Spalding
If we attempt to sink the soul in matter, its light is quenched.
John Lancaster Spalding
In the world of thought a man's rank is determined, not by his average work, but by his highest achievement.
John Lancaster Spalding
Our prejudices are like physical infirmities — we cannot do what they prevent us from doing.
John Lancaster Spalding
We shrink from the contemplation of our dead bodies, forgetting that when dead they are no longer ours, and concern us as little as the hairs that have fallen from our heads.
John Lancaster Spalding
