Theodore Parker quotes

Theodore Parker was an American transcendentalist, reforming minister, and influential abolitionist. His sermons and speeches inspired many in the fight against slavery and for social justice. He was a key figure in shaping progressive religious and political thought in 19th-century America. Here are 46 of his quotes:

All men desire to be immortal.

Theodore Parker

It is very sad for a man to make himself servant to a single thing; his manhood all taken out of him by the hydraulic pressure of excessive business.

Theodore Parker

Let others laugh when you sacrifice desire to duty, if they will. You have time and eternity to rejoice in.

Theodore Parker

Truth never yet fell dead in the streets; it has such affinity with the soul of man, the seed however broadcast will catch somewhere and produce its hundredfold.

Theodore Parker

The books that help you the most are those which make you think the most.

Theodore Parker

Outward judgment often fails, inward judgment never.

Theodore Parker

Truth stood on one side and Ease on the other; it has often been so.

Theodore Parker

Every rose is an autograph from the hand of the Almighty God.

Theodore Parker

Never violate the sacredness of your individual self-respect.

Theodore Parker

Politics is the science of urgencies.

Theodore Parker

Wealth and want equally harden the human heart.

Theodore Parker

Never violate the sacredness of your individual self-respect. Be true to your own mind and conscience, your heart and your soul. So only can you be true to God.

Theodore Parker

Look at the facts of the world. You see a continual and progressive triumph of the right. I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways; I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight; I can divine it by conscience. And from what I see I am sure it bends towards justice.

Theodore Parker

In America, the Democratic Party thinks slavery is 'indispensable to good government', and is 'the normal condition of one seventh part of the people.

Theodore Parker

Democracy means not "I am as good as you are" but "You are as good as I am.".

Theodore Parker

Man never falls so low, that he can see nothing higher than himself.

Theodore Parker

This idea demands, as the proximate organization thereof, a democracy, that is, a government of all the people, by all the people, for all the people; of course, a government after the principles of eternal justice, the unchanging law of God; for shortness' sake, I will call it the idea of Freedom.

Theodore Parker

Magnificent promises are always to be suspected.

Theodore Parker

Variant : This is what I call the American idea of freedom - a government of all the people, by all the people, for all the people; of course, a government of the principles of eternal justice - the unchanging law of God.

Theodore Parker

Observation and reflection only give us the actual of morals; conscience, by gradual and successive intuition, presents us the ideal of morals.

Theodore Parker

Justice is moral temperance in the world of men. It keeps just relations between men; one man, however little, must not be sacrificed to another, however great, to a majority, or to all men.

Theodore Parker

Justice is the constitution or fundamental law of the moral universe, the law of right, a rule of conduct for man in all his moral relations.

Theodore Parker