John Henry Newman Quotes

89 Sourced Quotes

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

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

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

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

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

John Henry Newman
A science is not mere knowledge, it is knowledge which has undergone a process of intellectual digestion. It is the grasp of many things brought together in one, and hence is its power; for, properly speaking, it is Science that is power, not Knowledge.

John Henry Newman
An academical system without the personal influence of teachers upon pupils, is an arctic winter; it will create an ice-bound, petrified, cast-iron University, and nothing else.

John Henry Newman
And this is all that is known, and more than all—yet nothing to what the angels know—of the life of a servant of God, who sinned and repented, and did penance and washed out his sins, and became a Saint, and reigns with Christ in heaven.

John Henry Newman
Nothing is more common than for men to think that because they are familiar with words they understand the ideas they stand for.

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
After he had gone over the mansion, his entertainer asked him what he thought of the splendours it contained; and he in reply did full justice to the riches of its owner and the skill of its decorators, but he added, "Lions would have fared better, had lions been the artists."

John Henry Newman
Faith is illuminative, not operative; it does not force obedience, though it increases responsibility; it heightens guilt, but it does not prevent sin. The will is the source of action.

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
I wonder what day I shall die on - one passes year by year over one's death day, as one might pass over one's grave.

John Henry Newman
I see nothing in the theory of evolution inconsistent with an Almighty Creator and Protector.

John Henry Newman
The heart is commonly reached, not through the reason, but through the imagination, by means of direct impressions, by the testimony of facts and events, by history, by description. Persons influence us, voices melt us, looks subdue us, deeds inflame us. Many a man will live and die upon a dogma; no man will be a martyr for a conclusion.

John Henry Newman
What can this world offer comparable with that insight into spiritual things, that keen faith, that heavenly peace, that high sanctity, that everlasting righteousness, that hope of glory, which they have, who in sincerity love and follow our Lord Jesus Christ?

John Henry Newman
To assert…that nothing is known because nothing is known luminously and exactly, seems to me saying that we do not see the stars because we cannot tell the number, size, or distance from each other.

John Henry Newman
We should ever conduct ourselves towards our enemy as if he were one day to be our friend.

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
Thought and speech are inseparable from each other. Matter and expression are parts of one; style is a thinking out into language.

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

John Henry Newman
If we are intended for great ends, we are called to great hazards.

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
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
I will trust Him. Whatever, wherever I am, I can never be thrown away. If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve Him; in perplexity, my perplexity may serve Him; if I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve Him. My sickness, or perplexity, or sorrow may be necessary causes of some great end, which is quite beyond us. He does nothing in vain.

John Henry Newman
Purity prepares the soul for love, and love confirms the soul in purity.

John Henry Newman
To discover and to teach are distinct functions; they are also distinct gifts, and are not commonly found united in the same person.

John Henry Newman
Such is the constitution of the human mind, that any kind of knowledge, if it be really such, is its own reward.

John Henry Newman