Harry Emerson Fosdick Quotes

Atheism is a theoretical formulation of the discouraged life.

It is by acts (actions) and not by ideas (mere thoughts) that people [really] live.

Whatever you laugh at in others, laughs at yourself

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

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.

All intelligent faith in God has behind it a background of humble agnosticism.

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

Opinions may be mistaken; love never is.

One never finds life worth living. One always has to make it work living.

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

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

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

We cannot restore integrity and morality to our society until each of us-singly and individually-takes responsibility for our actions.

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

The all but unanimous judgment seems to be that we, the democracies, are just as responsible for the rise of the dictators as the dictatorships themselves, and perhaps more so.

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

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

Great living starts with a picture, held in your imagination, of what you would like to do or be.

Self-pity gets you nowhere. But insight to see that something can be done with the second-bests and adventurous daring to try might be a handle to take hold of.

Happiness is not mostly pleasure, it is mostly victory.

What a testing of character adversity is.

Every failure can be considered as a tragedy or a chance to learn something. The latter is healthier

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

Bitterness imprisons life love releases it.

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

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

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

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

Bitterness imprisons life love releases it.

Fear imprisons faith liberates fear paralyzes faith empowers fear disheartens faith encourages fear sickens faith heals fear makes useless faith makes serviceable.

Watch what people are cynical about and one can often discover what they lack.

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