John Lancaster Spalding on Truth

"The narrow-minded and petty sticklers for the formalities which hedge rank and office are the true vulgarians, however observant they be of etiquette."

"When we have not the strength or the courage to grasp a new truth, we persuade ourselves that it is not a truth at all."

"Though what we accept be true, it is a prejudice unless we ourselves have considered and understood why and how it is true."

"However firmly thou holdest to thy opinions, if truth appears on the opposite side, throw down thy arms at once."

"The first requisite of a gentleman is to be true, brave and noble, and to be therefore a rebuke and scandal to venal and vulgar souls."

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

"To clothe truth in fitting words is to feel a satisfaction like that which comes of doing good deeds."

"It is not worth while to consider whether a truth be useful—it is enough that it is a truth."

"The more we live with what we imagine others think of us, the less we live with truth."

"If truth make us not truthful, what service can it render us?"

"True readers … are ready to go through a whole volume, if there be but hope of finding in it a single genuine thought or the mere suggestion even of a truth which has some fresh application to life."

"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."

"In our thrifty populations of merchants, manufacturers, politicians, and professional men, there is little sense for beauty, little pure thought, little genuine culture; but they are prosperous and self-satisfied."

"Moral education is the development of individuality, and individuality can not be developed by formulas and mechanical processes: it is the work of the master who brings to his task a genuine and loving interest in the individual."

"Philosophers and theologians, like the vulgar, prefer contradiction to enlightenment. They refute one another more gladly than they learn from one another, as though man lived by shunning error and not by loving truth. Accept their formulas and they sink back into their easy chairs and comfortably doze."