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Portrait of Harry Emerson Fosdick

Harry Emerson Fosdick

(1878–1969) Theologian

123 quotes in 653 categories

Harry Emerson Fosdick writes that life needs beauty and faith to stay warm, and that true strength shows up when we endure hardship instead of making excuses. He also points out how fear and cynicism can freeze us, while courage and belief melt those blocks. His thoughts link personal resolve with big ideas about war and politics.

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Harry Emerson Fosdick was a theologian, best known for The Man from Nazareth as His contemporaries saw Him.

Quick Facts About Harry Emerson Fosdick

Born: May 24, 1878
Died: October 5, 1969
Profession: Theologian
Notable works: The Man from Nazareth as His contemporaries saw Him

About Harry Emerson Fosdick

He was a Baptist who served as pastor at the First Presbyterian Church in Manhattan’s West Village and later at the Riverside Church in Morningside Heights, Manhattan. He was a central figure in the fundamentalist–modernist controversy within American Protestantism.

Quotes by Harry Emerson Fosdick

War's tragedy is that it uses man's best to do man's worst.

Harry Emerson Fosdick

Anti war

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No man need stay the way he is.

Harry Emerson Fosdick

Greatness

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No character is ultimately tested until it has suffered.

Harry Emerson Fosdick

Character

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A person wrapped up in himself makes a small package.

Harry Emerson Fosdick

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[L]ife ceases to be a fraction and becomes an integer.

Harry Emerson Fosdick

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Opinions may be mistaken; love never is.

Harry Emerson Fosdick

Failure

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No one can get inner peace by pouncing on it.

Harry Emerson Fosdick

Anxiety

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Bitterness imprisons life; love releases it.

Harry Emerson Fosdick

Anger

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

Harry Emerson Fosdick

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All altruism springs from putting yourself in the other person's place.

Harry Emerson Fosdick

Altruism

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

Harry Emerson Fosdick

Beautiful

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We cannot all be great, but we can always attach ourselves to something that it great.

Harry Emerson Fosdick

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

Harry Emerson Fosdick

Business

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

Harry Emerson Fosdick

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

Harry Emerson Fosdick

Change

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The man who says it can't be done is generally interrupted by someone doing it.

Harry Emerson Fosdick

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One must have the adventurous daring to accept oneself as a bundle of possibilities and undertake the most interesting game in the…

Harry Emerson Fosdick

Acceptance

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

Harry Emerson Fosdick

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Falsehood is never better than truth, theft better than honesty, treachery better than loyalty, cowardice better than courage.

Harry Emerson Fosdick

Courage

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He is a poor patriot whose patriotism does not enable him to understand how all men everywhere feel about their altars and…

Harry Emerson Fosdick

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“Whatever the situation and however disheartening it may be, it is a great hour when a man ceases adopting difficulties as an…

Harry Emerson Fosdick

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Friends are necessary to a happy life. When friendship deserts us, we are as helpless as a ship left by the tide…

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…

Harry Emerson Fosdick

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

Harry Emerson Fosdick

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I renounce war for its consequences, for the lies it lives on and propagates, for the undying hatred it arouses, for the…

Harry Emerson Fosdick

Consequence

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“No horse gets anywhere until he is harnessed. No stream or gas drives anything until it is confined. No Niagara is ever…

Harry Emerson Fosdick

Discipline

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Christ has given us the most glorious interpretation of life's meaning that man has ever had. The fatherhood of God, the fellowship…

Harry Emerson Fosdick

Christ

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Every great scientist becomes a great scientist because of the inner self-abnegation with which he stands before truth, saying: "Not my will,…

Harry Emerson Fosdick

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The process has now run full circle: Preaching originates in personal counseling; preaching is personal counseling on a group basis; personal counseling…

Harry Emerson Fosdick

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To keep the Golden Rule we must put ourselves in other people's places, but to do that consists in and depends upon…

Harry Emerson Fosdick

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“The most extraordinary thing about the oyster is this. Irritation gets into his shell. He does not like them. But when he…

Harry Emerson Fosdick

Adversity

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We must take the abiding spiritual values which inhere in the deep experiences of religion in all ages and give them new…

Harry Emerson Fosdick

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

Harry Emerson Fosdick

Burden

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Always take a job that is too big for you.

Harry Emerson Fosdick

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Whatever you laugh at in others, laughs at yourself

Harry Emerson Fosdick

Comedy

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What a testing of character adversity is.

Harry Emerson Fosdick

Adversity

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It is magnificent to grow old, if one keeps young.

Harry Emerson Fosdick

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

Harry Emerson Fosdick

Power

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No one can be wrong with man and right with God.

Harry Emerson Fosdick

God

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Preaching is personal counseling on a group basis.

Harry Emerson Fosdick

Counseling

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Harry Emerson Fosdick by topic

Life (25) Inspirational (20) Religion (18) Love (16) Men (14)