Harry Emerson Fosdick Quotes

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

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.

A person wrapped up in himself makes a small package.

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.

Every human life involves an unfathomable mystery, for man is the riddle of the universe, and the riddle of man in his endowment with personal capacities.

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."

I would rather live in a world where my life is surrounded by mystery than live in a world so small that my mind could comprehend it.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

Always take a job that is too big for you.

One of the most amazing things ever said on this earth is Jesus's statement: "He that is greatest among you shall be your servant." Nobody has one chance in a billion of being thought really great after a century has passed except those who have been the servants of all. That strange realist from Bethlehem knew that.

Picture yourself vividly as winning, and that alone will contribute immeasurably to success.

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

Hold a picture of yourself long and steadily enough in your mind's eye and you will be drawn toward it. Picture yourself vividly as winning and that alone will contribute immeasurably to success.

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.

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.

Bitterness imprisons life; love releases it.

Liberty is always dangerous, but it is the safest thing we have.

The steady discipline of intimate friendship with Jesus results in men becoming like Him.

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

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

Fearr imprisons, faith liberates; fear paralyzes, faith empowers; fear disheartens, faith encourages; fear sickens, faith heals; fear makes useless, faith also makes serviceable az quotes.

No man need stay the way he is.

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.

God is not a cosmic bellboy for whom we can press a button to get things.

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

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.

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

Democracy is based upon the conviction that there are extraordinary possibilities in ordinary people.

I hate war... for the dictatorships it puts in the place of democracies, and for the starvation that stalks after it.

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.

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.

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

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.

Real Christians do not carry their religion, their religion carries them. It is not weight, it is wings.

Life asks not merely what you can do; it asks how much can you endure and not be spoiled.

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

It is cynicism and fear that freeze life; it is faith that thaws it out, releases it, sets it free.

Peace is an awareness of reserves from beyond ourselves, so that our power is not so much in us as through us. Peace is the gift, not of volitional struggle, but of spiritual hospitality.

While each of us ... has depressed hours, none of us needs to be a depressed person.

He is a poor son whose sonship does not make him desire to serve all men's mothers.

No character is ultimately tested until it has suffered.

One could almost phrase the motto of our modern civilization thus: Science is my shepherd; I shall not want.

The fact that astronomies change while the stars abide is a true analogy of every realm of human life and thought, religion not least of all. No existent theology can be a final formulation of spiritual truth.

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

God has put within our lives meanings and possibilities that quite outrun the limits of mortality.