Top 120 John Henry Newman Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “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.”

— John Henry Newman

Featured in: Christian Quotes, Service Quotes, Dedication Quotes, Duty Quotes

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

— John Henry Newman

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

— John Henry Newman

4. “Growth is the only evidence of life.”

— John Henry Newman

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

— John Henry Newman

6. “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.”

— John Henry Newman

7. “To be deep in history, is to cease to be Protestant.”

— John Henry Newman

8. “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

9. “Calculation never made a hero.”

— John Henry Newman

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

— John Henry Newman

11. “It is mutual respect which makes friendship lasting.”

— John Henry Newman

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

— John Henry Newman

13. “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

14. “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

15. “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

16. “Conscience is the aboriginal Vicar of Christ.”

— John Henry Newman

17. “Learn to do thy part and leave the rest to Heaven.”

— John Henry Newman

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

— John Henry Newman

Featured in: Quotes About the Body

19. “I toast the Pope, but I toast conscience first.”

— John Henry Newman

20. “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

21. “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

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

— John Henry Newman

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

— John Henry Newman

24. “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

25. “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

26. “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

27. “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

28. “How can we understand forgiveness if we haven’t recognized the depth of our sin?”

— John Henry Newman

29. “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

30. “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

31. “The reason why Christ is unknown today is because His Mother is unknown.”

— John Henry Newman

32. “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

33. “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

34. “Great things are done by devotion to one idea.”

— John Henry Newman

35. “Knowledge is one thing, virtue is another.”

— John Henry Newman

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

— John Henry Newman

37. “We can believe what we choose. We are answerable for what we choose to believe.”

— John Henry Newman

38. “Somehow I am necessary for God’s purpose, as necessary in my place as an archangel in his.”

— John Henry Newman

39. “To the irreligious person heaven would be hell.”

— John Henry Newman

40. “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

41. “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...”

— John Henry Newman

42. “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

43. “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.”

— John Henry Newman

44. “Man is emphatically self-made.”

— John Henry Newman

45. “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

46. “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

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

— John Henry Newman

48. “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.”

— John Henry Newman

49. “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.”

— John Henry Newman

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

— John Henry Newman