150 Quotes by John Lancaster Spalding

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.

What is greatly desired, but long deferred, gives little pleasure, when at length it is ours, for we have lived with it in imagination until we have grown weary of it, having ourselves, in the meanwhile, become other.

It is not difficult to grasp and express thoughts that float on the stream of current opinion: but to think and rightly utter what is permanently true and interesting, what shall appeal to the best minds a thousand years hence, as it appeals to them to-day, this is the work of genius.

Culture makes the whole world our dwelling place; our palace in which we take our ease and find ourselves at one with all things.

The doctrine of the utter vanity of life is a doctrine of despair, and life is hope.

When guests enter the room their entertainers rise to receive them; and in all meetings men should ascend into their higher selves, imparting to one another only the best they know and love.

A gentleman does not appear to know more or to be more than those with whom he is thrown into company.

The important thing is how we know, not what or how much.

The ploughman knows how many acres he shall upturn from dawn to sunset: but the thinker knows not what a day may bring forth.