Harry Emerson Fosdick Quotes (48 Quotes)

Life consists not simply in what heredity and environment do to us but in what we make out of what they do to us.

Religion is not a burden, not a weight, it is wings.

He who chooses the beginning of the road chooses the place it leads to. It is the means that determines the end.

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.

The search for truth is, as it always has been, the noblest expression of the human spirit. Man's insatiable desire for knowledge about himself, about his environment and the forces by which he is surrounded, gives life its meaning and purpose, and clothes it with final dignity.... And yet we know, deep in our hearts, that knowledge is not enough.... Unless we can anchor our knowledge to moral purposes, the ultimate result will be dust and ashes dust and ashes that will bury the hopes and monuments of men beyond recovery.

Religion is something that only secondarily can be taught. It must must primarily be taught.

Preaching is personal counseling on a group basis.

Our power is not so much in us as through us.

No steam or gas ever drives anything until it is confined. No Niagara is ever turned into light and power until it is tunneled. No life ever grows until it is focused, dedicated, disciplined.

The stars are not so strange as the mind that studies them, analyzes their light, and measures their distance.

One watches people starting out in life quite adequately, handling life with active vigor, as they run, one after another, into experiences where something deeper than vigor is needed. Serious failure, for example. Some night in his lifetime everyone come.

The only life worth living is the adventurous life. Of such a life the dominant characteristic is that it is unafraid. If is unafraid of what other people think ... It does not adapt either its pace or its objectives to the pace and objectives of its neighbors. It thinks its own thoughts, it reads its own books, it developed its own hobbies, and it is governed by its own conscience. The herd may graze where it pleases or stampede where it pleases, but he who lives the adventurous life will remain unafraid when he finds himself alone.

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.

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

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

The most extraordinary thing about the oyster is this. Irritations set into his shell. He does not like them. But when he cannot get ride of them, he uses the irritation to do the loveliest thing an oyster ever has a chance to do. If there are irritations in our lives today, there is only one prescription make a pearl. It may have to be a pearl of patience, but anyhow, make a pearl. And it takes faith and I love to do it.

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

Of all mad faiths maddest is the faith that we can get rid of faith.

It is by acts and not by ideas that people live.

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

Always take a job that is too big for you.

Whatever you laugh at in others, laughs at yourself.

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.

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

The extraordinary thing about the oyster is when irritations get into his shell. When he cannot get rid of them, he uses the irritations to do the loveliest thing an oyster has a chance to do. If there are irritations in our lives . . . make a pearl.

The tragedy of war is that it uses man's best to do man's worst.

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.

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.

Bitterness imprisons life; love releases it.

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

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

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

Bitterness imprisons life love releases it. Bitterness paralyzes life love empowers it. Bitterness sours life love heals it. Bitterness blinds life love anoints its eye.

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

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 verificationso, 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.

A person wrapped up in himself makes a small package.

It is going to be a long, hard haul it will require patience, courage, faith that hangs on when hope fails, if we are to tame the rude barbarity of man, so that the atomic age becomes a blessing, not a curse. There never was such a day for the Christian gospel. God help us all in these years ahead to make that gospel live in men and nations.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

Christians are supposed not merely to endure change, nor even to profit by it, but to cause it.

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

He who knows no hardships will know no hardihood. He who faces no calamity will need no courage. Mysterious though it is, the characteristics in human nature which we love best grow in a soil with a strong mixture of troubles.

Life is a library owned by an author. It has a few books which he wrote himself, but most of them were written for him.

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