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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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John Lancaster Spalding
Age: 76 †
Born: 1840
Born: June 2
Died: 1916
Died: August 25
Author
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Catholic Priest
Lebanon
Kentucky
Angel
Devil
Instead
Mistake
Spirit
Harbor
Harbors
Piety
Thus
More quotes by John Lancaster Spalding
If a state should pass laws forbidding its citizens to become wise and holy, it would be made a byword for all time. But this, in effect, is what our commercial, social, and political systems do. They compel the sacrifice of mental and moral power to money and dissipation.
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
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
Each forward step we take we leave some phantom of ourselves behind.
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
Those subjects have the greatest educational value, which are richest in incentives to the noblest self-activity.
John Lancaster Spalding
Your faith is what you believe, not what you know.
John Lancaster Spalding
If we attempt to sink the soul in matter, its light is quenched.
John Lancaster Spalding
It is difficult to be sure of our friends, but it is possible to be certain of our loyalty to them.
John Lancaster Spalding
In giving us dominion over the animal kingdom God has signified His will that we subdue the beast within ourselves.
John Lancaster Spalding
Those who believe in our ability do more than stimulate us. They create for us an atmosphere in which it becomes easier to succeed.
John Lancaster Spalding
Whoever has freed himself from envy and bitterness may begin to try to see things as they are.
John Lancaster Spalding
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.
John Lancaster Spalding
We may outgrow the things of children, without acquiring sense and relish for those which become a man.
John Lancaster Spalding
Though what we accept be true, it is a prejudice unless we ourselves have considered and understood why and how it is true.
John Lancaster Spalding
The common man is impelled and controlled by interests the superior, by ideas.
John Lancaster Spalding
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
The ploughman knows how many acres he shall upturn from dawn to sunset: but the thinker knows not what a day may bring forth.
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
