John Henry Newman Quotes

89 Sourced Quotes

Evil has no substance of its own, but is only the defect, excess, perversion, or corruption of that which has substance.

John Henry Newman
We can believe what we choose. We are answerable for what we choose to believe.

John Henry Newman
It is very difficult to get up resentment towards persons whom one has never seen.

John Henry Newman
A great memory is never made synonymous with wisdom, any more than a dictionary would be called a treatise.

John Henry Newman
In a higher world it is otherwise, but here below to live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often.

John Henry Newman
So living Nature, not dull Art,
Shall plan my ways and rule my heart.

John Henry Newman
O Lord, support us all the day long, until the shadows lengthen and the evening comes, and the busy world is hushed, and the fever of life is over, and our work is done. Then in thy mercy grant us a safe lodging, and a holy rest, and peace at the last.

John Henry Newman
It would be a gain to the country were it vastly more superstitious, more bigoted, more gloomy, more fierce in its religion than at present it shows itself to be.

John Henry Newman
I want a laity, not arrogant, not rash in speech, not disputatious, but men who know their religion, who enter into it, who know just where they stand, who know what they hold and what they do not, who know their creed so well that they can give an account of it, who know so much of history that they can defend it.

John Henry Newman
The world is content with setting right the surface of things.

John Henry Newman
Life passes, riches fly away, popularity is fickle, the senses decay, the world changes. One alone is true to us; One alone can be all things to us; One alone can supply our need.

John Henry Newman
Literature stands related to Man as Science stands to Nature; it is his history.

John Henry Newman
There is such a thing as legitimate warfare: war has its laws; there are things which may fairly be done, and things which may not be done…He has attempted (as I may call it) to poison the wells.

John Henry Newman
All that is good, all that is true, all that is beautiful, all that is beneficent, be it great or small, be it perfect or fragmentary, natural as well as supernatural, moral as well as material, comes from God.

John Henry Newman
The attributes of God, though intelligible to us on their surface yet, for the very reason that they are infinite, transcend our comprehension, when they are dwelt upon, when they are followed out, and can only be received by faith.

John Henry Newman
How can we feel our need of His help, or our dependence on Him, or our debt to Him, or the nature of His gift to us, unless we know ourselves.... This is why many in this age (and in every age) become infidels, heretics, schismatics, disloyal despisers of the Church.... They have never had experience of His power and love, because they have never known their own weakness and need.

John Henry Newman
There are wounds of the spirit which never close and are intended in God's mercy to bring us nearer to Him, and to prevent us leaving Him by their very perpetuity. Such wounds then may almost be taken as a pledge, or at least as a ground for a humble trust, that God will give us the great gift of perseverance to the end. This is how I comfort myself in my own great bereavements.

John Henry Newman
With Christians, a poetical view of things is a duty. We are bid to color all things with hues of faith, to see a divine meaning in every event.

John Henry Newman
Nothing would be done at all, if a man waited till he could do it so well, that no one could find fault with it.

John Henry Newman
It is often said that second thoughts are best; so they are in matters of judgment but not in matters of conscience.

John Henry Newman
We must make up our minds to be ignorant of much, if we would know anything.

John Henry Newman
Let us take things as we find them: let us not attempt to distort them into what they are not... We cannot make facts. All our wishing cannot change them. We must use them.

John Henry Newman
It is as absurd to argue men, as to torture them, into believing.

John Henry Newman
To be deep in history is to cease to be a Protestant.

John Henry Newman
A university is, according to the usual designation, an Alma Mater, knowing her children one by one, not a foundry, or a mint, or a treadmill.

John Henry Newman