James V. Schall Quotes & Sayings

At first sight, it seems that something, almost anything, must be done about our situation. But it is the genius of Pieper to see that this activist, busy motion is the wrong starting point. Before we can pretend to do anything about the present, we must know what we are, what the world is, and yes, what God is. Construction of a civilization that knows little or nothing of these deeper realities can only make things worse. — James V. Schall

No one will seek the highest [things] if he believes that there is no truth, that nothing is his fault, and that government will guarantee his wants. — James V. Schall

Thinking is itself, however, an adventure. — James V. Schall

Hell is a consequence of one's own free choice. It would not exist if free choice did not exist or, better, if free choice were not used badly. It is not imposed arbitrarily from the outside by pitiless gods but grows logically from inside a human soul. It is the result of someone's making himself what he wants to be, not what God wants him to be. — James V. Schall

In a sense, we can tell a lot about anyone by looking at what books, if any, he reads, at what books are on his shelves ... I have always found books to be helpful, yet they must be good books. — James V. Schall

I often think ... that the bookstores that will save civilization are not online, nor on campuses, nor named Borders, Barnes & Noble, Dalton, or Crown. They are the used bookstores, in which, for a couple of hundred dollars, one can still find, with some diligence, the essential books of our culture, from the Bible and Shakespeare to Plato, Augustine, and Pascal. — James V. Schall

No serious book lover will ever die having read every book he has managed to collect. This is not a sign of dilatoriness but of eagerness, anticipation. — James V. Schall

Self-discipline is the beginning of wisdom, not its end. When we have discovered the purpose for which self-discipline exists, we will, if we are sane, hardly recall anything about self-discipline because it has enabled us to become free to see and do so much else. — James V. Schall

There is an intimate connection between our moral life and our intellectual life. Sometimes I think the history of our times can be described as an argument about whether or not this connection is true. — James V. Schall

Why read? Because we are given more than we are. — James V. Schall

The cruelest form of death, I have no doubt, is not physical death. Rather it is that public death which comes from the killing of ideas about God. — James V. Schall