Harry Emerson Fosdick, 1878 - 1969
Photo by Underwood & Underwood, New York City (1926)
Born: 24 May 1878, Buffalo, New York
Died: 5 October 1969, Bronxville, New York
Fosdick graduated from Colgate University in 1900, then entered Union Theological Seminary. He went to seminary as a fundamentalist, he left as a liberal. He was ordained as a Baptist minister in 1903 and served First Baptist Church at Montclair, New Jersey until 1915 when he returned to UTS to teach. In 1918 he was called to First Presbyterian Church in midtown New York City but his powerful preaching, including the widely circulated Shall the Fundamentalists Win?, 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; the policies were changed and Fosdick hired. Rockefeller funded 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.
Biography from Wikipedia
Additional quotes from Wikiquote. Wikiquote entries are often "sourced" and may include items longer than those included here, particularly for poets, lyricists, and dramatists.
Harry Emerson Fosdick quotes:
Quotes found : 38 — (15 per page, this is page 1 of 3) 1 2 3 Next
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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 riches of Christ' - are actually transported into personal lives upon the other. permalink
Harry Emerson Fosdick - A person wrapped up in himself makes a small package. permalink
Harry Emerson Fosdick - Always take a job that is too big for you. permalink
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. permalink
Harry Emerson Fosdick - Christians are supposed not merely to endure change, nor even to profit by it, but to cause it. permalink
Harry Emerson Fosdick - Democracy is based upon the conviction that there are extraordinary possibilities in ordinary people. permalink
Harry Emerson Fosdick - Don't simply retire from something; have something to retire to. permalink
Harry Emerson Fosdick - Every human life involves an unfathomable mystery, for man is the riddle of the universe, and the riddle of man is his endowment with personal capacities. permalink
Harry Emerson Fosdick - Fear imprisons, faith liberates; fear paralyzes, faith empowers; fear disheartens, faith encourages; fear sickens, faith heals; fear makes useless, faith makes serviceable. permalink
Harry Emerson Fosdick - God has put within our lives meanings and possibilities that quite outrun the limits of mortality. permalink
Harry Emerson Fosdick - God is not a cosmic bellboy for whom we can press a button to get things. permalink
Harry Emerson Fosdick - Hating people is like burning down your house to get rid of a rat. permalink
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. permalink
Harry Emerson Fosdick - He who chooses the beginning of a road chooses the place it leads to. It is the means that determine the end. permalink
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. permalink
Harry Emerson Fosdick
Quotes found : 38 — (15 per page, this is page 1 of 3) 1 2 3 Next
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