Harry Emerson Fosdick quotes

Harry Emerson Fosdick was an influential American pastor and theologian, recognized for his role in the early 20th-century liberal Christianity movement. As a prominent preacher, his sermons addressed social issues and promoted tolerance and understanding among Christians. He became known for his advocacy of religious modernism and support for social justice. Here are 62 of his quotes:

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.

Harry Emerson Fosdick

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

Harry Emerson Fosdick

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

Harry Emerson Fosdick

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.

Harry Emerson Fosdick

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

Harry Emerson Fosdick

A person wrapped up in himself makes a small package.

Harry Emerson Fosdick

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

Harry Emerson Fosdick

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

Harry Emerson Fosdick

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

Harry Emerson Fosdick

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

Harry Emerson Fosdick

Bitterness imprisons life; love releases it.

Harry Emerson Fosdick

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

Harry Emerson Fosdick

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.

Harry Emerson Fosdick

Preaching is personal counseling on a group basis.

Harry Emerson Fosdick

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

Harry Emerson Fosdick

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

Harry Emerson Fosdick

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

Harry Emerson Fosdick

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.

Harry Emerson Fosdick

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

Harry Emerson Fosdick

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.

Harry Emerson Fosdick

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

Harry Emerson Fosdick

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

Harry Emerson Fosdick