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Nothing else matters much...not wealth, nor learning, nor even health...without this gift: the spiritual capacity to keep zest in living. This is the creed of creeds, the final deposit and distillation of all important faiths: that you should be able to believe in life.
Harry Emerson Fosdick -
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.
Harry Emerson Fosdick
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A person wrapped up in himself makes a small package.
Harry Emerson Fosdick -
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.
Harry Emerson Fosdick -
Democracy is not simply a political system; it is a moral movement and it springs from adventurous faith in human possibilities.
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 -
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.
Harry Emerson Fosdick -
He is a poor son whose sonship does not make him desire to serve all men's mothers.
Harry Emerson Fosdick
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Atheism is a theoretical formulation of the discouraged life.
Harry Emerson Fosdick -
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.
Harry Emerson Fosdick -
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.
Harry Emerson Fosdick -
No one can be wrong with man and right with God.
Harry Emerson Fosdick -
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.
Harry Emerson Fosdick -
Liberty is always dangerous, but it is the safest thing we have.
Harry Emerson Fosdick
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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 -
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!
Harry Emerson Fosdick -
Nothing in human life, least of all in religion, is ever right until it is beautiful.
Harry Emerson Fosdick -
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.
Harry Emerson Fosdick -
One could almost phrase the motto of our modern civilization thus: Science is my shepherd; I shall not want.
Harry Emerson Fosdick -
God is not a cosmic bellboy for whom we can press a button to get things.
Harry Emerson Fosdick
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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.
Harry Emerson Fosdick -
No man need stay the way he is.
Harry Emerson Fosdick -
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 verification-so, 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.
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