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The first requisite of a gentleman is to be true, brave and noble, and to be therefore a rebuke and scandal to venal and vulgar souls.

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
Noble
Brave
Venal
Therefore
Rebuke
True
Requisite
Soul
Scandal
Firsts
Vulgar
First
Gentleman
Souls

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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.
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If there were nothing else to trouble us, the fate of the flowers would make us sad.
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Those subjects have the greatest educational value, which are richest in incentives to the noblest self-activity.
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The able have no desire to appear to be so, and this is part of their ability.
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We are not masters of the truth which is borne in upon us: it overpowers us.
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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.
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The innocence which is simply ignorance is not virtue.
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We may avoid much disappointment and bitterness of soul by learning to understand how little necessary to our joy and peace are the things the multitude most desire and seek.
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What we love to do we find time to do.
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They who can no longer unlearn have lost the power to learn.
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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.
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He who leaves school, knowing little, but with a longing for knowledge, will go farther than one who quits, knowing many things, but not caring to learn more.
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The doubt of an earnest, thoughtful, patient and laborious mind is worthy of respect. In such doubt may be found indeed more faith than in half the creeds.
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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.
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The ploughman knows how many acres he shall upturn from dawn to sunset: but the thinker knows not what a day may bring forth.
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The doctrine of the utter vanity of life is a doctrine of despair, and life is hope.
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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.
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Whoever has freed himself from envy and bitterness may begin to try to see things as they are.
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Language should be pure, noble and graceful, as the body should be so: for both are vestures of the Soul.
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There are faults which show heart and win hearts, while the virtue in which there is no love, repels.
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