John Henry Newman Quotes (34 Quotes)

We can believe what we choose. We are answerable for what we choose to believe.

Let us act on what we have, since we have not what we wish.

Ten thousand difficulties do not make one doubt.

Ability is sexless.

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

I loved the garish day, and, spite of fears, Pride ruled my will remember not past years.

Virtue is its own reward, and brings with it the truest and highest pleasure; but if we cultivate it only for pleasure's sake, we are selfish, not religious, and will never gain the pleasure, because we can never have the virtue.

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

It is often said that second thoughts are best. So they are in matters of judgment but not in matters of conscience.

A great memory does not make a mind, any more than a dictionary is a piece of literature.

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

I recollect an acquaintance saying to me that 'the Oriel Common Room stank of Logic.'

To live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often.

Lead, kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom, Lead thou me on; The night is dark, and I am far from home, Lead thou me on.

A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault.

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.

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

This is what the Church is said to want, not party men, but sensible, temperate, sober, well-judging persons, to guide it through the channel of no-meaning, between the Scylla and Charybdis of Aye and no.

In this world no one rules by love; if you are but amiable, you are no hero; to be powerful, you must be strong, and to have dominion you must have a genius for organizing.

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

Growth is the only evidence of life.

Nothing would be done at all if one waited until one could do it so well that no one could find fault with it.

From the age of fifteen, dogma has been the fundamental principle of my religion: I know no other religion; I cannot enter into the idea of any other sort of religion; religion, as a mere sentiment, is to me a dream and a mockery.

If we insist on being as sure as is conceivable... we must be content to creep along the ground, and never soar.

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.

Calculation never made a hero.

Men will die upon dogma but will not fall victim to a conclusion.

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

The love of our private friends is the only preparatory exercise for the love of all men.

And with the morn those angel faces smile; Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile.

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

Fear not that thy life shall come to an end, but rather that it shall ever have a beginning.

To holy people the very name of Jesus is a name to feed upon, a name to transport. His name can raise the dead and transfigure and beautify the living.

It is almost a definition of a gentleman to say that he is one who never inflicts pain.