Top 136 Quotes & Sayings by John Henry Newman

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Calculation never made a hero.

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

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

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

Fear not that thy life shall come to an end, but rather that it shall never have a beginning.

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

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.

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

Ten thousand difficulties do not make one doubt.

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.

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

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

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

Ability is sexless.

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

Growth is the only evidence of life.

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

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

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.

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

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

Learn to do thy part and leave the rest to Heaven.

To take up the cross of Christ is no great action done once for all; it consists in the continual practice of small duties which are distasteful to us.

Christ is already in that place of peace, which is all in all. He is on the right hand of God. He is hidden in the brightness of the radiance which issues from the everlasting throne. He is in the very abyss of peace, where there is no voice of tumult or distress, but a deep stillness--stillness, that greatest and most awful of all goods which we can fancy; that most perfect of joys, the utter profound, ineffable tranquillity of the Divine Essence. He has entered into His rest. That is our home; here we are on a pilgrimage, and Christ calls us to His many mansions which He has prepared.

I sought to hear the voice of God and climbed the topmost steeple, but God declared: "Go down again - I dwell among the people.

I want a laity, not arrogant, not rash in speech, not disputatious, but men who know their religion, who enter into it, who know just where they stand, who know what they hold and what they do not, who know their creed so well that they can give an account of it, who know so much of history that they can defend it.

There are wounds of the spirit which never close and are intended in God's mercy to bring us nearer to Him, and to prevent us leaving Him by their very perpetuity. Such wounds then may almost be taken as a pledge, or at least as a ground for a humble trust, that God will give us the great gift of perseverance to the end. This is how I comfort myself in my own great bereavements.

God has created me to do Him some definite service; He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission.

How can we understand forgiveness if we haven't recognized the depth of our sin?

How can we feel our need of His help, or our dependence on Him, or our debt to Him, or the nature of His gift to us, unless we know ourselves.... This is why many in this age (and in every age) become infidels, heretics, schismatics, disloyal despisers of the Church.... They have never had experience of His power and love, because they have never known their own weakness and need.

Life passes, riches fly away, popularity is fickle, the senses decay, the world changes. One alone is true to us; One alone can be all things to us; One alone can supply our need.

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.

God knows what is my greatest happiness, but I do not. There is no rule about what is happy and good; what suits one would not suit another. And the ways by which perfection is reached vary very much; the medicines necessary for our souls are very different from each other. Thus God leads us by strange ways; we know He wills our happiness, but we neither know what our happiness is, nor the way. We are blind; left to ourselves we should take the wrong way; we must leave it to Him.

Dear Lord...shine through me, and be so in me that every soul I come in contact with may feel Your presence in my soul...Let me thus praise You in the way You love best, by shining on those around me.

The reason why Christ is unknown today is because His Mother is unknown.

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.

Fear not that thy life shall come to an end, but rather fear that it shall never have a beginning.

It is God himself who can be discovered in the beauty of sensible things.

A cloud of incense was rising on high; the people suddenly all bowed low; what could it mean? The truth flashed on him, fearfully yet sweetly; it was the Blessed Sacrament - it was the Lord Incarnate who was on the altar, who had come to visit and bless his people. It was the Great Presence, which makes a Catholic Church different from every other place in the world; which makes it, as no other place can be - holy.

God has created all things for good; all things for their greatest good; everything for its own good. What is the good of one is not the good of another; what makes one man happy would make another unhappy. God has determined, unless I interfere with His plan, that I should reach that which will be my greatest happiness. He looks on me individually, He calls me by my name, He knows what I can do, what I can best be, what is my greatest happiness, and He means to give it me.

When you feel in need of a compliment, give one to someone else.

May He support us all the day long, till the shades 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 His mercy may He give us a safe lodging, and a holy rest, and peace at the last.

Prayer is to the spiritual life what the beating of the pulse and the drawing of the breath are to the life of the body.

To be deep in history, is to cease to be Protestant.

You must be patient, you must wait for the eye of the soul to be formed in you. Religious truth is reached, not by reasoning, but by an inward perception. Anyone can reason; only disciplined, educated, formed minds can perceive.

Now what is it that moves our very hearts and sickens us so much at cruelty shown to poor brutes?.. They have done us no harm and they have no power of resistance... There is something so very dreadful, so Satanic, in tormenting those who have never harmed us, who cannot defend themselves, who are utterly in our power.

God has created me to do Him some definite service; He has committed some work to me which he has not committed to another, I have my mission ... He has not created me for naught ... If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve Him; If I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve Him. He does nothing in vain. He knows what He is about.

God has created me to do him some definite service; He has committed some work to me which he has not committed to another. I have my mission; I never may know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next. I have a part in a great work; I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons. He has not created me for naught. I shall do good, I shall do His work; I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place, while not intending it, if I do but keep His commandments and serve Him in my calling.

God created you to do him some particular service. He has given some work to you that he has not given to another. You have your mission. You shall do good.

Knowledge is one thing, virtue is another.