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Insight makes argument ridiculous.

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
Insight
Ridiculous
Argument
Makes

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We may outgrow the things of children, without acquiring sense and relish for those which become a man.
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Inferior thinking and writing will make a name for a man among inferior people, who in all ages and countries, are the majority.
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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.
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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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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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What we think out for ourselves forms channels in which other thoughts will flow.
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In the world of thought a man's rank is determined, not by his average work, but by his highest achievement.
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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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Exercise of body and exercise of mind are supplementary, and both may be made recreative and educative.
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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.
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Those who believe in our ability do more than stimulate us. They create for us an atmosphere in which it becomes easier to succeed.
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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.
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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.
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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
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We are made ridiculous less by our defects than by the affectation of qualities which are not ours.
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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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We are not masters of the truth which is borne in upon us: it overpowers us.
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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.
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Be watchful lest thou lose the power of desiring and loving what appeals to the soul this is the miser's curse this the chain and ball the sensualist drags.
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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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