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.
John Henry NewmanLife 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 NewmanReligion 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 NewmanBrutes 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.
John Henry NewmanA great memory is never made synonymous with wisdom, any more than a dictionary would be called a treatise.
John Henry NewmanGod 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.
John Henry Newman