Harry Emerson Fosdick Quotes

Prayer opens our lives for God so his will can be done in and through us, because in true prayer we habitually put ourselves into the attitude of willingness to do whatever God wills.

No life ever grows great until it is focused, dedicated, disciplined.

The finest quality of our characters do not come from trying but from the mysterious and yet most effective capacity to be inspired.

Self-pity gets you nowhere. But insight to see that something can be done with the second-bests and adventurous daring to try might be a handle to take hold of.

A supremely religious man or woman is one who believes deeply and consistently in the veracity of his highest experiences. He has his hours in the cellar ... but he believes in the truth of the hours he spends upstairs.

Hating people is like burning down your own house to get rid of a rat.

Preaching is personal counseling on a group basis.

One never finds life worth living. One always has to make it work living.

He who cannot rest, cannot work; he who cannot let go, cannot hold on; he who cannot find footing, cannot go forward.

A good sermon is an engineering operation by which a chasm is bridged so that the spiritual goods on one side-the 'unsearchable riches of Christ' - are actually transported into personal lives upon the other.

When you hear a person say, "I hate," adding the name of some race, nation, religion, or social class, you are dealing with a belated mind. That person may dress like a modern, ride in an automobile, listen to the radio, but his or her mind is properly dated about 1000 B.C.

Bitterness imprisons life; love releases it. Bitterness paralyzes life; love empowers it. Bitterness sours life; love sweetens it. Bitterness sickens life; love heals it. Bitterness blinds life; love anoints its eyes.

Whatever you laugh at in others, laughs at yourself

In the foothills of the Himalayas, one hears the prayer: "Oh Lord, we know not what is good for us. You know what it is. For it we pray."

Nothing in this world is more inspiring than a soul up against crippling circumstances who carries it off with courage and faith and undefeated character-nothing! See Light From Many Lamps, edited by L. E. Watson, article by H. E. Fosdick, pp. 93-94 re: a serious cripple who succeeded.

[L]ife ceases to be a fraction and becomes an integer.

Falsehood is never better than truth, theft better than honesty, treachery better than loyalty, cowardice better than courage.

Every year the inventions of science weave more inextricably the web that binds man to man, group to group, nation to nation.

Christ has given us the most glorious interpretation of life's meaning that man has ever had. The fatherhood of God, the fellowship of the Spirit, the sovereignty of righteousness, the law of love, the glory of service, the coming of the Kingdom, the eternal hope- there was never an interpretation of life to compare with that.

Don't simply retire from something; have something to retire to.

No one can be wrong with man and right with God.

The tragic evils of our life are so commonly unintentional. We did not start out for that poor, cheap goal. That aim was not in our minds at all....Look to the road you are walking on. He who picks up one end of [a] stick picks up the other.He who chooses the beginning of a road chooses the place it leads to.

It is by acts (actions) and not by ideas (mere thoughts) that people [really] live.

No virtue is more universally accepted as a test of good character than trustworthiness .

The more we know about this universe, the more mysterious it is. The old world that Job knew was marvelous enough, and his description of its wonders is among the noblest poetry of the race, but today the new science has opened to our eyes vistas of mystery that transcend in their inexplicable marvel anything the ancients ever dreamed.

We cannot all be great, but we can always attach ourselves to something that is great.

No horse gets anywhere until he is harnessed. No stream or gas drives anything until it is confined. No Niagara is ever turned into light and power until it is tunneled. No life ever grows great until it is focused, dedicated, disciplined.

Always take a job that is too big for you.

I hate war for its consequences, for the lies it lives on and propagates, for the undying hatreds it arouses.

He is a poor patriot whose patriotism does not enable him to understand how all men everywhere feel about their altars and their hearthstones, their flag and their fatherland.

A person wrapped up in himself makes a small package.

It is not marriage that fails; it is people that fail. All that marriage does is to show people up.

Friends are necessary to a happy life. When friendship deserts us, we are as helpless as a ship left by the tide high upon the shore. When friendship returns to us, it's as though the tide came back, giving us buoyancy and freedom.

The all but unanimous judgment seems to be that we, the democracies, are just as responsible for the rise of the dictators as the dictatorships themselves, and perhaps more so.

No one can get inner peace by pouncing on it, by vigorously willing to have it ... Peace is a consciousness of springs too deep for earthly droughts to dry up. Peace is the gift not of volitional struggle but of spiritual hospitality.

Life is like a library owned by the author. In it are a few books which he wrote himself, but most of them were written for him.

War's tragedy is that it uses man's best to do man's worst.

It is magnificent to grow old, if one keeps young.

We must take the abiding spiritual values which inhere in the deep experiences of religion in all ages and give them new expression in terms of the framework which our new knowledge gives us. Science forces religion to deal with new ideas in the theoretical realm and new forces in the practical realm.

The Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea are made of the same water. It flows down, clean and cool, from the heights of Herman and the roots of the cedars of Lebanon. the Sea of Galilee makes beauty of it, the Sea of Galilee has an outlet. It gets to give. It gathers in its riches that it may pour them out again to fertilize the Jordan plain. But the Dead Sea with the same water makes horror. For the Dead Sea has no outlet. It gets to keep.

One of the strange phenomena of the last century is the spectacle of religion dropping the appeal of fear while other human interests have picked it up.

Men will work hard for money. They will work harder for other men. But men will work hardest of all when they are dedicated to a cause. Until willingness overflows obligation, men fight as conscripts rather than following the flag as patriots. Duty is never worthily performed until it is performed by one who would gladly do more if only he could.

Granted the endless variations of moral customs, still the essential standards persist. As in a scientific laboratory, all else may change but the standards are unalterable- disinterested love of truth, fidelity to facts, accuracy in measurement, exactness of verification-so, in life as a whole, the towering ethical criteria remain unshaken. Falsehood is never better than truth, theft better than than honesty, treachery better than loyalty, cowardice better than courage.

One must have the adventurous daring to accept oneself as a bundle of possibilities and undertake the most interesting game in the world -- making the most of one's best.

To keep the Golden Rule we must put ourselves in other people's places, but to do that consists in and depends upon picturing ourselves in their places.

...while science gives us implements to use, science alone does not determine for what ends they will be employed. Radio is an amazing invention. Yet now that it is here, one suspects that Hitler never could have consolidated his totalitarian control over Germany without its use. One never can tell what hands will reach out to lay hold on scientific gifts, or to what employment they will be put. Ever the old barbarian emerges, destructively using the new civilization.

Happiness is not mostly pleasure, it is mostly victory.

He who picks up one end of a stick picks up the other. He who chooses the beginning of a road chooses the place it leads to. It is the means that determine the end.