Top 100 John Henry Newman Quotes
#2. 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.
John Henry Newman
#3. Somehow I am necessary for God's purpose, as necessary in my place as an archangel in his.
John Henry Newman
#4. 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.
John Henry Newman
#5. 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.
John Henry Newman
#6. A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault.
John Henry Newman
#7. The reason why Christ is unknown today is because His Mother is unknown.
John Henry Newman
#8. We must make up our minds to be ignorant of much, if we would know anything.
John Henry Newman
#9. God has created me to do some definite service. He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission. 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.
John Henry Newman
#10. How many writers are there ... who, breaking up their subject into details, destroy its life, and defraud us of the whole by their anxiety about the parts.
John Henry Newman
#12. Certainly a liberal education does manifest itself in a courtesy, propriety, and polish of word and action, which is beautiful in itself, and acceptable to others; but it does much more. It brings the mind into form, - for the mind is like the body.
John Henry Newman
#13. I shall drink to the Pope, if you please, still, to conscience first, and to the Pope afterwards.
John Henry Newman
#14. 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.
John Henry Newman
#15. To live is to change, and to change often is to become more perfect.
John Henry Newman
#17. It is very difficult to get up resentment towards persons whom one has never seen.
John Henry Newman
#18. And with the morn those angel faces smile Which I have loved long since and lost awhile.
John Henry Newman
#19. When men understand what each other mean, they see, for the most part, that controversy is either superfluous or hopeless
John Henry Newman
#20. We should ever conduct ourselves towards our enemy as if he were one day to be our friend.
John Henry Newman
#22. 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.
John Henry Newman
#24. Faith is the result of the act of the will, following upon a conviction that to believe is a duty.
John Henry Newman
#25. O loving wisdom of our God
when all was sin and shame,
a second Adam to the fight
and to the rescue came.
John Henry Newman
#26. 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.
John Henry Newman
#27. I loved the garish day, and, spite of fears,
Pride ruled my will: remember not past years.
John Henry Newman
#28. 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.
John Henry Newman
#29. But one aspect of Revelation must not be allowed to exclude or to obscure another; and Christianity is dogmatical, devotional, practical all at once; it is esoteric and exoteric; it is indulgent and strict; it is light and dark; it is love, and it is fear.
John Henry Newman
#30. 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.
John Henry Newman
#31. 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.
John Henry Newman
#32. If I looked into a mirror, and did not see my face, I should have the sort of feeling which actually comes upon me, when I look into this living busy world, and see no reflexion of its Creator.
John Henry Newman
#33. When you feel in need of a compliment, give one to someone else.
John Henry Newman
#34. The ears of the common people are holier than the hearts of the priests.
John Henry Newman
#35. 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.
John Henry Newman
#36. It is as absurd to argue men, as to torture them, into believing.
John Henry Newman
#37. Fear not that thy life shall come to an end, but rather fear that it shall never have a beginning.
John Henry Newman
#38. Men will die upon dogma but will not fall victim to a conclusion.
John Henry Newman
#39. I see nothing in the theory of evolution inconsistent with an Almighty Creator and Protector.
John Henry Newman
#40. Of all points of faith, the being of a God is, to my own apprehension, encompassed with most difficulty, and yet borne in upon our minds with most power.
John Henry Newman
#41. Cease, stranger, cease those witching notes,
The art of syren choirs;
Hush the seductive voice that floats
Across the trembling wires.
Music's ethereal power was given
Not to dissolve our clay,
But draw Promethean beams from heaven
To purge the dross away.
John Henry Newman
#42. To discover and to teach are distinct functions; they are also distinct gifts, and are not commonly found united in the same person.
John Henry Newman
#44. 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.
John Henry Newman
#45. Divine Wisdom speaks not to the world, but to her own children.
John Henry Newman
#46. Two and two only supreme and luminously self-evident beings, myself and my Creator.
John Henry Newman
#47. 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.
John Henry Newman
#48. Nothing is more common in an age like this, when books abound, than to fancy that the gratification of a love of reading is real study.
John Henry Newman
#49. 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.
John Henry Newman
#51. A development, to be faithful, must retain both the doctrine and the principle with which it started. Doctrine
John Henry Newman
#53. The refutation and remedy of errors cannot precede their rise; and thus the fact of false developments or corruptions involves the correspondent manifestation of true ones. Moreover,
John Henry Newman
#54. 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.
John Henry Newman
#55. A great memory is never made synonymous with wisdom, any more than a dictionary would be called a treatise.
John Henry Newman
#56. Doctrine without its correspondent principle remains barren, if not lifeless, of which the Greek Church seems an instance; or
John Henry Newman
#57. The love of our private friends is the only preparatory exercise for the love of all men.
John Henry Newman
#59. If we insist on being as sure as is conceivable ... we must be content to creep along the ground, and never soar.
John Henry Newman
#60. A universityeducates the intellect to reason well in all matters, to reach out towards truth, and to grasp it.
John Henry Newman
#61. 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.
John Henry Newman
#62. 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.
John Henry Newman
#63. What is more likely, considering our perverse nature, than that we should neglect the duties, while we wish to retain the privileges of our Christian profession? Our
John Henry Newman
#64. It is often said that second thoughts are best. So they are in matters of judgment but not in matters of conscience.
John Henry Newman
#65. Purity prepares the soul for love, and love confirms the soul in purity.
John Henry Newman
#66. Ten thousand difficulties do not make one doubt, as I understand the subject; difficulty and doubt are incommensurate.
John Henry Newman
#67. You must make up your mind to the prospect of sustaining a certain measure of pain and trouble in you'r passage through life.
John Henry Newman
#68. Courage does not consist in calculation, but in fighting against chances.
John Henry Newman
#69. 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.
John Henry Newman
#70. 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.
John Henry Newman
#71. Thought and speech are inseparable from each other. Matter and expression are parts of one; style is a thinking out into language.
John Henry Newman
#72. 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.
John Henry Newman
#73. 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.
John Henry Newman
#74. Nothing would be done at all if one waited until one could do it so well that no one could find fault with it.
John Henry Newman
#76. 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.
John Henry Newman
#78. And this one thing at least is certain; whatever history teaches, whatever it omits, whatever it exaggerates or extenuates, whatever it says and unsays, at least the Christianity of history is not Protestantism. If ever there were a safe truth, it is this.
John Henry Newman
#79. Reason is God's gift, but so are the passions. Reason is as guilty as passion.
John Henry Newman
#80. Regarding Christianity: Ten thousand difficulties do not make one doubt.
John Henry Newman
#81. 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.
John Henry Newman
#82. It is God himself who can be discovered in the beauty of sensible things.
John Henry Newman
#83. 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.
John Henry Newman
#84. Living Nature, not dull art Shall plan my ways and rule my Heart.
John Henry Newman
#85. Lead, kindly light, amid the encircling gloom, lead thou me on.
John Henry Newman
#86. To live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often.
John Henry Newman
#87. It is beautiful in a picture to wash the disciples' feet; but the sands of the real desert have no lustre in them to compensate for the servile nature of the occupation.
John Henry Newman
#88. When the Apostles were taken away, Christianity did not at once break into portions; yet separate localities might begin to be the scene of internal dissensions, and a local arbiter in consequence would be wanted. Christians
John Henry Newman
#90. Living movements do not come of committees, nor are great ideas worked out through the post, even though it had been the penny post.
John Henry Newman
#91. Faith ... acts promptly and boldly on the occasion, on slender evidence.
John Henry Newman
#92. By a garden is meant mystically a place of spiritual repose, stillness, peace, refreshment, delight.
John Henry Newman
#93. 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?
John Henry Newman
#94. The world is content with setting right the surface of things.
John Henry Newman
#95. 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.
John Henry Newman
#96. Such is the constitution of the human mind, that any kind of knowledge, if it be really such, is its own reward.
John Henry Newman
#97. Faith ventures and hazards ... counting the costs and delighting in the sacrifice.
John Henry Newman
#98. A great memory does not make a mind, any more than a dictionary is a piece of literature.
John Henry Newman
#99. Its home is in the world; and to know what it is, we must seek it in the world, and hear the world's witness of it.
John Henry Newman
#100. Let us put ourselves into His hands, and not be startled though He leads us by a strange way, a mirabilis via, as the Church speaks. Let us be sure He will lead us right, that He will bring us to that which is, not indeed what we think best, nor what is best for another, but what is best for us.
John Henry Newman
Famous Authors
Popular Topics
Scroll to Top