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Quotes of the Day for 24 May 2005 - Harry Emerson Fosdick

Harry Emerson Fosdick was born at Buffalo, New York on this day in 1878. He studied at Colgate University, then entered Union Theological Seminary. He went to seminary as a fundamentalist, he left as a liberal. He served his first congregation from 1903 to 1915 when he returned to UTS to teach. In 1918 he was called to a Presbyterian church in midtown New York City but his powerful preaching, which often challenged orthodoxy, aroused the attention of the national church and he was forced from that pulpit. John D. Rockefeller asked Fosdick to serve as pastor of Park Avenue Baptist Church but was rebuffed based on some narrow policies and the fact that the church was in too rich and comfortable an area, so the policies were changed and they established Riverside Church at Morningside Heights, where Fosdick served until his retirement. Fosdick claimed to need a pen in his hand to think and wrote countless sermons, over thirty books, at least one great hymn, and these quotes.

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.

He who chooses the beginning of a road chooses the place it leads to. It is the means that determine the end.

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.

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

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

Hating people is like burning down your house to get rid of a rat.
     - All from Harry Emerson Fosdick, 1878 - 1969

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