“Beauty lies not in the things we see, but in the soul.”
Origine: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 158
John Lancaster Spalding era religioso (vescovo cattolico).
“Beauty lies not in the things we see, but in the soul.”
Origine: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 158
Origine: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 204
Origine: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), pp. 11-12
Contesto: The multitude are matter-of-fact. They live in commonplace concerns and interests. Their problems are, how to get more plentiful and better food and drink, more comfortable and beautiful clothing, more commodious dwellings, for themselves and their children. When they seek relaxation from their labors for material things, they gossip of the daily happenings, or they play games or dance or go to the theatre or club, or they travel or they read story books, or accounts in the newspapers of elections, murders, peculations, marriages, divorces, failures and successes in business; or they simply sit in a kind of lethargy. They fall asleep and awake to tread again the beaten path. While such is their life, it is not possible that they should take interest or find pleasure in religion, poetry, philosophy, or art. To ask them to read books whose life-breath is pure thought and beauty is as though one asked them to read things written in a language they do not understand and have no desire to learn. A taste for the best books, as a taste for whatever is best, is acquired; and it can be acquired only by long study and practice. It is a result of free and disinterested self-activity, of efforts to attain what rarely brings other reward than the consciousness of having loved and striven for the best. But the many have little appreciation of what does not flatter or soothe the senses. Their world, like the world of children and animals, is good enough for them; meat and drink, dance and song, are worth more, in their eyes, than all the thoughts of all the literatures. A love tale is better than a great poem, and the story of a bandit makes Plutarch seem tiresome. This is what they think and feel, and what, so long as they remain what they are, they will continue to think and feel. We do not urge a child to read Plato—why should we find fault with the many for not loving the best books?
Origine: Means and Ends of Education (1895), Chapter 1 "Truth and Love"
Origine: Means and Ends of Education (1895), Chapter 1 "Truth and Love"
“The important thing is how we know, not what or how much.”
Origine: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 22
Origine: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 77
Origine: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 165
Origine: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 78
Origine: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 148
Origine: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 127
Origine: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 226
“Break not the will of the young, but guide it to right ends.”
Origine: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 149
“When the mind has grasped the matter, words come like flowers at the call of spring.”
Origine: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 17
“Where it is the chief aim to teach many things, little education is given or received.”
Origine: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 232
“They who truly know have had to unlearn hardly less than they have had to learn.”
Variante: They who can no longer unlearn have lost the power to learn.
Origine: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 90
“They who admire and reverence noble and heroic men are akin to them.”
Origine: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 145
Origine: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 161
Origine: Means and Ends of Education (1895), Chapter 1 "Truth and Love"
Origine: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 189
“It is not worth while to consider whether a truth be useful—it is enough that it is a truth.”
Origine: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 167
Origine: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 212
“Not to be able to utter one’s thought without giving offence, is to lack culture.”
Origine: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 192
“It is more profitable to be mindful of our own faults than of those of our age.”
Aphorisms and Reflections (1901)
“When we know and love the best we are content to lack the approval of the many.”
Origine: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 171
Origine: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 116
Origine: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 169