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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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What we think out for ourselves forms channels in which other thoughts will flow.
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The innocence which is simply ignorance is not virtue.
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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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Our prejudices are like physical infirmities — we cannot do what they prevent us from doing.
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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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The able have no desire to appear to be so, and this is part of their ability.
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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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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.
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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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The important thing is how we know, not what or how much.
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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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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.
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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.
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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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One may speak Latin and have but the mind of a peasant.
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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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In giving us dominion over the animal kingdom God has signified His will that we subdue the beast within ourselves.
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The writers who accomplish most are those who compel thought on the highest and most profoundly interesting subjects.
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As our power over others increases, we become less free for to retain it, we must make ourselves its servants.
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We are not masters of the truth which is borne in upon us: it overpowers us.
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