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

More quotes by John Lancaster Spalding

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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.
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In education, as in religion and love, compulsion thwarts the purpose for which it is employed.
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A gentleman does not appear to know more or to be more than those with whom he is thrown into company.
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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.
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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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Solitude is unbearable for those who can not bear themselves.
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.
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Dislike of another's opinions and beliefs neither justifies our own nor makes us more certain of them: and to transfer the repugnance to the person himself is a mark of a vulgar mind.
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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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They who see through the eyes of others are controlled by the will of others.
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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.
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It is the expensiveness of our pleasures that makes the world poor and keeps us poor in ourselves. If we could but learn to find enjoyment in the things of the mind, the economic problems would solve themselves.
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The teacher does best, not when he explains, but when he impels his pupils to seek themselves the explanation.
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Each forward step we take we leave some phantom of ourselves behind.
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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.
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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Insight makes argument ridiculous.
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Education would be a divine thing, if it did nothing more than help us to think and love great thoughts instead of little thoughts.
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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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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