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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

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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
World
Highest
Acquired
Strength
Thyself
Suffering
Cruel
Free
Appetite
Learn
Overcoming
Withstand
Become
Thou
Appetites
Able
Bear
Shalt
Self
Bears
Sufferings

More quotes by John Lancaster Spalding

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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.
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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
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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
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When we know and love the best we are content to lack the approval of the many.
John Lancaster Spalding
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The teacher does best, not when he explains, but when he impels his pupils to seek themselves the explanation.
John Lancaster Spalding
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The world is chiefly a mental fact. From mind it receives the forms of time and space, the principle of casuality[sic], color, warmth, and beauty. Were there no mind, there would be no world.
John Lancaster Spalding
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What we love to do we find time to do.
John Lancaster Spalding
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Those subjects have the greatest educational value, which are richest in incentives to the noblest self-activity.
John Lancaster Spalding
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A Wise man knows that much of what he says and does is commonplace and trivial. His thoughts are not all solemn and sacred in his own eyes. He is able to laugh at himself and is not offended when others make him a subject whereon to exercise their wit.
John Lancaster Spalding
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To cultivate the memory we should confide to it only what we understand and love: the rest is a useless burden for simply to know by rote is not to know at all.
John Lancaster Spalding
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In giving us dominion over the animal kingdom God has signified His will that we subdue the beast within ourselves.
John Lancaster Spalding
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There are who mistake the spirit of pugnacity for the spirit of piety, and thus harbor a devil instead of an angel.
John Lancaster Spalding
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If thou wouldst be interesting, keep thy personality in the background, and be great and strong in and through thy subject.
John Lancaster Spalding
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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.
John Lancaster Spalding
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Exercise of body and exercise of mind are supplementary, and both may be made recreative and educative.
John Lancaster Spalding
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What we enjoy, not what we possess, is ours, and in labouring for the possession of many things, we lose the power to enjoy the best.
John Lancaster Spalding
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To think of education as a means of preserving institutions however excellent, is to have a superficial notion of its end and purpose, which is to mould and fashion men who are more than institutions, who create, outgrow, and re-create them.
John Lancaster Spalding
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Contradiction is the salt which keeps truth from corruption
John Lancaster Spalding
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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
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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.
John Lancaster Spalding