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

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

Harry Emerson Fosdick

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

Harry Emerson Fosdick

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

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

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

I hate war for its consequences, for the lies it lives on and propagates, for the undying hatreds it arouses.

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

It is cynicism and fear that freeze life; it is faith that thaws it out, releases it, sets it free.

Harry Emerson Fosdick