Harry Emerson Fosdick Quotes

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Harry Emerson Fosdick

Profession : Clergyman

Birth : May 24, 1878

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

Religion is not a burden, not a weight, it is wings.

Harry Emerson Fosdick

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

Harry Emerson Fosdick

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

Harry Emerson Fosdick

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

Harry Emerson Fosdick

Hating people is like burning down your own house to get rid of a rat.

Harry Emerson Fosdick

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Harry Emerson Fosdick

A person wrapped up in himself makes a small package.

Harry Emerson Fosdick

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

Harry Emerson Fosdick

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

The world is moving so fast these days that the one who says it can't be done is generally interrupted by someone doing it.

Harry Emerson Fosdick

Preaching is personal counseling on a group basis.

Harry Emerson Fosdick