John Henry Newman

quoted by M. D. Aeschliman in "The Prudence of John Henry Newman", First Things, No. 45 (August/September 1994):

The sentiment of the sacredness in institutions fades away, and the measure of truth or expediency is the private judgment of the individual. An endless variety of opinion is the certain though slow result; no overpowering majority of judgments is found to decide what is good and what is bad; political measures become acts of compromise; and at length the common bond of unity in the state consists in nothing really common, but simply in the unanimous wish of each member of it to secure his own interests.

Knowledge is one thing, virtue is another.... Philosophy, however enlightened, however profound, gives no command over the passions, no influential motives, no vivifying principles.... 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. -- The Idea of a University

After all, man is not a reasoning animal; he is a seeing, feeling, contemplating, acting animal. -- The Tamworth Reading Room