John Lancaster Spalding - Power Quotes

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Be watchful lest thou lose the power of desiring and loving what appeals to the soul—this is the miser's curse—this the chain and ball the sensualist drags.

John Lancaster Spalding
If the young are watched too closely, if they are kept habitually under surveillance, the spring of action is weakened, the power of initiative is destroyed, and they become mediocre, commonplace, mechanical men and women, from whom nothing excellent or distinguished may be expected. Parents and teachers … must so deal with the young as to bring them little by little under the control of reason and conscience; and in this, nothing thwarts more surely than excessive supervision, for it draws attention from the inner view and voice to the eyes of the watchers. It may cultivate a love of decency and propriety, but not the creative feeling that we live with God and that righteousness is life.

John Lancaster Spalding
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.

John Lancaster Spalding
The study of science, dissociated from that of philosophy and literature, narrows the mind and weakens the power to love and follow the noblest ideals: for the truths which science ignores and must ignore are precisely those which have the deepest bearing on life and conduct.

John Lancaster Spalding
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.

John Lancaster Spalding
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.

John Lancaster Spalding
They who can no longer unlearn have lost the power to learn.

John Lancaster Spalding
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.

John Lancaster Spalding
The aim of education is to strengthen and multiply the powers and activities of the mind rather than to increase its possessions.

John Lancaster Spalding
As our power over others increases, we become less free; for to retain it, we must make ourselves its servants.

John Lancaster Spalding
A principal aim of education is to give students a taste for literature, for the books of life and power, and to accomplish this, it is necessary that their minds be held aloof from the babblement and discussions of the hour, that they may accustom themselves to take interest in the words and deeds of the greatest men, and so make themselves able and worthy to shape a larger and nobler future; but if their hours of leisure are spent over journals and reviews, they will, in later years, become the helpless victims of the newspaper habit.

John Lancaster Spalding
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.

John Lancaster Spalding
More inspiring and interesting teaching alone can make progress in education possible: for such teaching alone has power to produce greater self-activity, greater concentration of mind, greater desire to learn not only how to get a living, but how to live.

John Lancaster Spalding
The power of free will is developed and confirmed by increasing the number of worthy motives which influence conduct.

John Lancaster Spalding