John Lancaster Spalding Quotes

You are a slave of what you need in your soul.

I have a very addictive personality, so I'm even careful about wanting more of anything than I need - even chocolate.

He is lost who is possessed by carnal desire.

He who is a slave to his stomach seldom worships God.

The proximity of a desirable thing tempts one to overindulgence. On that path lies danger.

Life is made too easy. Mankind's moral fibre is giving way under the softening influence of luxury.

Greed has taken the whole universe, and nobody is worried about their soul.

The beast for me is greed. Whether you read Dante, Swift, or any of these guys, it always boils down to the same thing: the corruption of the soul.

I once in a while cheat and have a little ice cream, and then I kind of blame myself.

It may almost be a question whether such wisdom as many of us have in our mature years has not come from the dying out of the power of temptation, rather than as the results of thought and resolution.

The body of a sensualist is the coffin of a dead soul.

The easiest way to convince my kids that they don't really need something is to get it for them.

The more men value money the less they value virtue.

Nothing brings more pain than too much pleasure; nothing more bondage than too much liberty.

Greed has poisoned men's souls.

If you would abolish covetousness, you must abolish its mother, profusion.

This body of ours has one fault: the more you indulge it, the more things it discovers to be essential to it. It is extraordinary how it likes being indulged.

I see that any materialism in life coarsens the soul, and that the hunger of the body and the appetites of the flesh desecrate always, and often destroy.

Urges ... every man has urges. But the true measure of man is to admit them, to learn to control them. The Shield used to refer to themselves as the most dominant force in our universe. But that ain't the way I remember it. They fell victim to the faults of men. Their lust and greed and valor for glory, it led them right down in the pit, where they belong. Tonight, they'll burn for it. For I am no man. I am reborn. Our bond can never be broken, and our urges can never be satisfied.

My soul, never laugh at sin's fooleries, lest thou come to smile at sin itself. It is thine enemy, and thy Lord's enemy.

Can we ever break free of the devices and desires of our own hearts? Might not our conscience be telling us what we most want to hear?

People are distracted by objects of desire, and afterwards repent of the lust they've indulged, because they have indulged with a phantom and are left even farther from Reality than before. Your desire for the illusory is a wing, by means of which a seeker might ascend to Reality. When you have indulged a lust, your wing drops off; you become lame and that fantasy flees. Preserve the wing and don't indulge such lust, so that the wing of desire may bear you to Paradise. People fancy they are enjoying themselves, but they are really tearing out their wings for the sake of an illusion.

Laws and principles are not for the times when there is no temptation: they are for such moments as this, when body and soul rise in mutiny against their rigour ... If at my convenience I might break them, what would be their worth?

When the flesh presents thee with delights, then present thyself with dangers; where the world possesses thee with vain hopes, there possess thyself with true fear; when the devil brings thee oil, bring thou vinegar. The way to be safe is never to be secure.