Harry Emerson Fosdick Quotes - Page 4

The process has now run full circle: Preaching originates in personal counseling; preaching is personal counseling on a group basis; personal counseling originates in preaching. Personal counseling imparts to the preacher a practical familiarity with human nature which he would not otherwise obtain.

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.

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

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

Nothing in human life, least of all in religion, is ever right until it is beautiful.

...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.

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!

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.

Democracy is not simply a political system; it is a moral movement and it springs from adventurous faith in human possibilities.

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

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

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

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.

My friends, nothing in all the world is so much worth thinking of as God, Christ, the Bible, sin and salvation, the divine purposes for humankind, life everlasting. But you cannot challenge the dedicated thinking of this generation to these sublime themes upon any such terms as are laid down by an intolerant church.

I renounce war for its consequences, for the lies it lives on and propagates, for the undying hatred it arouses, for the dictatorships it puts in place of democracy, for the starvation that stalks after it. I renounce war, and never again, directly or indirectly, will I sanction or support another.

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.

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

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.

Some things mankind can finish and be done with, but not ... science, that persists, and changes from ancient Chaldeans studying the stars to a new telescope with a 200-inch reflector and beyond; not religion, that persists, and changes from old credulities and world views to new thoughts of God and larger apprehensions of his meaning.

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

No one can get inner peace by pouncing on it.--Harry Emerson FosdickNo one can get inner peace by pouncing on it.

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."

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

Every great scientist becomes a great scientist because of the inner self-abnegation with which he stands before truth, saying: "Not my will, but thine, be done." What, then, does a man mean by saying, Science displaces religion, when in this deep sense science itself springs from religion?

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