Top 120 John Henry Newman Quotes (2026 Update)
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51. “Regarding Christianity: Ten thousand difficulties do not make one doubt.”

— John Henry Newman

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

— John Henry Newman

53. “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

54. “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

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

— John Henry Newman

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

— John Henry Newman

57. “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

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

— John Henry Newman

59. “Knowledge is one thing, virtue is another; good sense is not conscience, refinement is not humility, nor is largeness and justness of view faith. Philosophy, however enlightened, however profound, gives no command over the passions, no influential motives, no vivifying principles. Liberal Education makes not the Christian, not the Catholic, but the gentleman.”

— John Henry Newman

60. “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

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

— John Henry Newman

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

— John Henry Newman

63. “Go down again – I dwell among the people.”

— John Henry Newman

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

— John Henry Newman

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

— John Henry Newman

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

— John Henry Newman

67. “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

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

— John Henry Newman

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

— John Henry Newman

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

— John Henry Newman

71. “From shadows and symbols into the truth.”

— John Henry Newman

72. “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

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

— John Henry Newman

74. “To live is to change, and if you have lived long, you have changed often.”

— John Henry Newman

75. “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.”

— John Henry Newman

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

— John Henry Newman

77. “Boys do not fully know what is good and what is evil; they do wrong things at first almost innocently. Novelty hides vice from them; there is no one to warn them or give them rules; and they become slaves of sin, while they are learning what sin is.”

— John Henry Newman

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

— John Henry Newman

79. “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

80. “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.”

— John Henry Newman

81. “The minds of young people are pliable and elastic, and easily accommodate themselves to any one they fall in with.”

— John Henry Newman

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

— John Henry Newman

83. “Providence has delivered me of every worldly passion, save this one; the desire to acquire books, new or old books of any kind, whose charms I cannot persuade myself to resist.”

— John Henry Newman

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

— John Henry Newman

85. “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

86. “The heart is a secret with its Maker; no one on earth can hope to get at it or to touch it.”

— John Henry Newman

87. “Wine is good in itself, but not for a man in a fever. If our souls were in perfect health, riches and authority, and strong powers of mind, would be very suitable to us: but they are weak and diseased, and require so great a grace of God to bear these advantages well, that we may be well content to be without them.”

— John Henry Newman

88. “The profession and the developments of a doctrine are according to the emergency of the time, and silence at a certain period implies, not that it was not then held, but that it was not questioned.”

— John Henry Newman

89. “If you ask me what you are to do in order to be perfect, I say, first – Do not lie in bed beyond the due time of rising; give your first thoughts to God; make a good visit to the Blessed Sacrament; say the Angelus devoutly; eat and drink to God’s glory; say the Rosary well; be recollected; keep out bad thoughts; make your evening meditation well; examine yourself daily; go to bed in good time, and you are already perfect.”

— John Henry Newman

90. “Quarry the granite rock with razors, or moor the vessel with a thread of silk; then may you hope with such keen and delicate instruments as human knowledge and human reason to contend against those giants, the passion and the pride of man.”

— John Henry Newman

91. “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.”

— John Henry Newman

92. “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

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

— John Henry Newman

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

— John Henry Newman

95. “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

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

— John Henry Newman

97. “Time hath a taming hand.”

— John Henry Newman

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

— John Henry Newman

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

— John Henry Newman

100. “Flagrant evils cure themselves by being flagrant.”

— John Henry Newman