Frases de John Lancaster Spalding

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“Assim como a memória pode ser um paraíso do qual não podemos ser levados, ela pode também ser um infermo do qual não conseguimos escapar.”

“There are faults which show heart and win hearts, while the virtue in which there is no love, repels.”

“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.”

“It is the business of the teacher … to fortify reason and to make conscience sovereign.”

“Work, mental or manual, is the means whereby attention is compelled, it is the instrument of all knowledge and virtue, the root whence all excellence springs.”

“States of soul rightly expressed, as the poet expresses them in moments of pure inspiration, retain forever the power of creating like states. It is this that makes genuine literature a vital force.”

“If thou need money, get it in an honest way—by keeping books, if thou wilt, but not by writing books.”

“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.”

“Passion is begotten of passion, and it easily happens, as with the children of great men, that the base is the offspring of the noble.”

“Language should be pure, noble and graceful, as the body should be so: for both are vestures of the Soul.”

“Since the mass of mankind are too ignorant or too indolent to think seriously, if majorities are right it is by accident.”

“Houses and fields in which we lived and played in childhood and youth with those we loved, grow to be part of our being. The sight of them in later years touches us with mystic charm. It is like a vision from beyond the tomb or a memory of a lost Paradise. But little by little their power over us grows less and the light that falls on them becomes more like the common day. Their sacredness diminishes, their beauty fades. The young birds have flown, the old are dead, the leaves and blossoms have fallen and but the empty nest is left among the naked boughs; and looking on the desolation we feel that we have no abiding place on earth, since the home itself loses its consecration.”

“It is the tendency of the study of science to make us patient, humble and attentive to the smallest things. Is not this part of religion?”

“In the world of thought a man’s rank is determined, not by his average work, but by his highest achievement.”

“The weak, when they have authority, surround themselves with the weak. It is, indeed, a vice of rulers that men who have exceptional ability and worth are offensive to them, since they whose greatness is due to their position find it difficult to love those whom inner power makes great.”

“The writers who accomplish most are those who compel thought on the highest and most profoundly interesting subjects.”

“As display is vulgar, so fondness for jewelry is evidence of an uncultivated mind.”

“If we learn from those only, of whose lives and opinions we altogether approve, we shall have to turn from many of the highest and profoundest minds.”

“One may speak Latin and have but the mind of a peasant.”

“The exercise of authority is odious, and they who know how to govern, leave it in abeyance as much as possible.”

“He who leaves school, knowing little, but with a longing for knowledge, will go farther than one who quits, knowing many things, but not caring to learn more.”

“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.”

“The zest of life lies in right doing, not in the garnered harvest.”

“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.”

“The aim of education is to strengthen and multiply the powers and activities of the mind rather than to increase its possessions.”

“A hobby is the result of a distorted view of things. It is putting a planet in the place of a sun.”

“What we acquire with joy, we possess with indifference.”

“If ancient descent could confer nobility, the lower forms of life would possess it in a greater degree than man.”

“If thou wouldst help others deal with them as though they were what they should be”

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