John Henry Newman quotes:

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

Somehow I am necessary for God's purpose, as necessary in my place as an archangel in his.

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.

Health of body and mind is a great blessing, if we can bear it.

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

Satan is inconsistent. He persuades a man not to go to a synagogue on a cold morning; yet when the man does go, he follows him into it.

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.

Feast of Clare of Assisi, Founder of the Order of Minoresses (Poor Clares), 1253 Commemoration of John Henry Newman, Priest, Teacher, Tractarian, 1890 It is our great relief that God is not extreme to mark what is done amiss, that he looks at the motives, and accepts and blesses in spite of incidental errors.

It's really not a difficult decision when you reflect on it, ... The situation is just so tenuous with where it's going to hit. You don't want to take any chances.

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

Cruelty to animals is as if humans did not love God.

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

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

Ten thousand difficulties do not make one doubt.

Growth is the only evidence of life.

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.

There is in stillness oft a magic power To calm the breast when struggling passions lower, Touched by its influence, in the soul arise Diviner feelings, kindred with the skies.

Lead, kindly light, amid the encircling gloom, lead thou me on.

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

Purity prepares the soul for love, and love confirms the soul in purity.

A science is not mere knowledge, it is knowledge which has undergone a process of intellectual digestion. It is the grasp of many things brought together in one, and hence is its power; for, properly speaking, it is Science that is power, not Knowledge..

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.

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

There is a knowledge which is desirable, though nothing come of it, as being of itself a treasure, and a sufficient remuneration of years of labor.

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.

Why should we be willing to go by faith? We do all things in this world by faith in the word of others. By faith only we know our position in the world, our circumstances, our rights and privileges, our fortunes, our parents, our brothers and sisters, our age, our mortality. Why should Religion be an exception?

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

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

I shall drink to the Pope, if you please, still, to conscience first, and to the Pope afterwards.

Good is never accomplished except at the cost of those who do it, truth never breaks through except through the sacrifice of those who spread it.

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

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.

Time hath a taming hand.

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

Conscience is the aboriginal Vicar of Christ.

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

Calculation never made a hero.

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

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.

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.

Animals have done us no harm and they have no power of resistance. There is something so very dreadful 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 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.

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.

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

The attributes of God, though intelligible to us on their surface yet, for the very reason that they are infinite, transcend our comprehension, when they are dwelt upon, when they are followed out, and can only be received by faith.

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.

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.

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

Faith is the result of the act of the will, following upon a conviction that to believe is a duty.

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.

It is not God's way that great blessings should descend without the sacrifice first of great sufferings. If the truth is to be spread to any wide extent among the people, how can we dream, how can we hope, that trial and trouble shall not accompany its going forth.

If then a practical end must be assigned to a University course, I say it is that of training good members of society... It is the education which gives a man a clear, conscious view of their own opinions and judgements, a truth in developing them, an eloquence in expressing them, and a force in urging them. It teaches him to see things as they are, to go right to the point, to disentangle a skein of thought to detect what is sophistical and to discard what is irrelevant.

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.

Most people go not by argument, but by sympathies.

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

I wonder what day I shall die on - one passes year by year over one's death day, as one might pass over one's grave.

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

What can this world offer comparable with that insight into spiritual things, that keen faith, that heavenly peace, that high sanctity, that everlasting righteousness, that hope of glory, which they have, who in sincerity love and follow our Lord Jesus Christ?

You must make up your mind to the prospect of sustaining a certain measure of pain and trouble in you'r passage through life.

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

Regarding Christianity: Ten thousand difficulties do not make one doubt.

It is seldom we have the heart to throw ourselves, if I may so speak, on the Divine Arm; we dare not trust ourselves on the waters, though Christ bids us. We have not St. Peter's love to ask leave to come to him upon the sea. When we once are filled with that heavenly charity, we can do all things, because we attempt all things - for to attempt is to do.

Praise to the Holiest in the height, And in the depth be praise; In all His words most wonderful, Most sure in all His ways.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

Lions would have fared better, had lions been the artists.

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

Faith is illuminative, not operative; it does not force obedience, though it increases responsibility; it heightens guilt, but it does not prevent sin. The will is the source of action.

I see nothing in the theory of evolution inconsistent with an Almighty Creator and Protector.

By a garden is meant mystically a place of spiritual repose, stillness, peace, refreshment, delight.

Faith ventures and hazards . . . counting the costs and delighting in the sacrifice.

O most sacred, most loving heart of Jesus, thou art concealed in the Holy Eucharist, and thou beatest for us still.... Thou art the heart of the Most High made man.... Thy Sacred Heart is the instrument and organ of Thy love. It did beat for us. It yearned for us. It ached for our salvation. It was on fire through zeal, that the glory of God might be manifested in and by us.... In worshipping thee I worship my incarnate God, my Emmanuel

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

Every breath of air and ray of light and heat, every beautiful prospect, is, as it were, the skirts of the (angel's) garments, the waving robes of those whose faces see God.

Courage does not consist in calculation, but in fighting against chances.

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

O loving wisdom of our God when all was sin and shame, a second Adam to the fight and to the rescue came.

The heart is commonly reached, not through the reason, but through the imagination, by means of direct impressions, by the testimony of facts and events, by history, by description. Persons influence us, voices melt us, looks subdue us, deeds inflame us. Many a man will live and die upon a dogma; no man will be a martyr for a conclusion.

Flagrant evils cure themselves by being flagrant.

When men understand what each other mean, they see, for the most part, that controversy is either superfluous or hopeless

Without self-knowledge you have no root in yourselves personally; you may endure for a time, but under affliction or persecution your faith will not last. This is why many in this age (and in every age) become infidels, heretics, schismatics, disloyal despisers of the Church. They cast off the form of truth, because it never has been to them more than a form. They endure not, because they never have tasted that the Lord is gracious; and they never have had experience of His power and love, because they have never known their own weakness and need.

True religion is slow in growth, and, when once planted, is difficult of dislodgement; but its intellectual counterfeit has no root in itself: it springs up suddenly, it suddenly withers.

Brutes gaze on sights, they are arrested by sounds; and what they see and what they hear are sights and sounds only. The intellectof man, on the contrary, energises as well as his eye or ear, and perceives in sights or sounds something beyond them. It seizes and unites what the senses present to it; it grasps and forms what need not be seen or heard except in detail. It discerns in lines and colors, or in tones, what is beautiful and what is not. It gives them a meaning, and invests them with an idea.

Great things are done by devotion to one idea.

Make me what Thou wouldst have me. I bargain for nothing. I make no terms. I seek for no previous information whither Thou art taking me. I will be what Thou wilt make me, and all that Thou wilt make me. I say not, I will follow Thee whithersoever Thou goest, for I am weak, but I give myself to Thee, to lead me anywhither. ...

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.

With Christians, a poetical view of things is a duty. We are bid to color all things with hues of faith, to see a divine meaning in every event.

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

To the irreligious person heaven would be hell.

Thought and speech are inseparable from each other. Matter and expression are parts of one; style is a thinking out into language.

Living Nature, not dull art Shall plan my ways and rule my Heart.

Literature stands related to Man as Science stands to Nature; it is his history.

To discover and to teach are distinct functions; they are also distinct gifts, and are not commonly found united in the same person.

All men have a reason, but not all men can give a reason.

Knowledge is one thing, virtue is another.

Now what is it moves our very heart, and sickens us so much as cruelty shown to poor brutes? I suppose this: first, that they have done us no harm; next that they have no power whatsoever of resistance; it is the cowardice and tyranny, of which they are the victims, which make their sufferings so especially touching. There is something so very dreadful, so satanic in tormenting those who have never harmed us, and who cannot defend themselves, who are utterly in our power.

Religion indeed enlightens, terrifies, subdues; it gives faith, it inflicts remorse, it inspires resolutions, it draws tears, it inflames devotion, but only for the occasion.

Reason is one thing and faith is another and reason can as little be made a substitute for faith, as faith can be made a substitute for reason.

Go down again - I dwell among the people.

I want a laitywho know their creed so well, that they can give an account of it, who know so much of history that they can defend it.

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.

Two and two only supreme and luminously self-evident beings, myself and my Creator.

The ears of the common people are holier than the hearts of the priests.

The world is content with setting right the surface of things.

Man is emphatically self-made.

An academical system without the personal influence of teachers on pupils, is an arctic winter; it will create an icebound, petrified, cast-iron University, and nothing else.

Stuffing birds or playing stringed instruments is an elegant pastime, and a resource to the idle, but it is not education.

A universityeducates the intellect to reason well in all matters, to reach out towards truth, and to grasp it.

I toast the Pope, but I toast conscience first.

After the fever of life--after wearinesses, sicknesses, fightings and despondings, languor and fretfulness, struggling and failing, struggling and succeeding--after all the changes and chances of this troubled and unhealthy state, at length comes death--at length the white throne of God--at length the beatific vision.