138 Quotes by Harry Emerson Fosdick

We cannot restore integrity and morality to our society until each of us-singly and individually-takes responsibility for our actions.

We ask the leaf, "Are you complete in yourself?" And the leaf answers, "No, my life is in the branches." We ask the branch, and the branch answers, "No my life is in the root." We ask the root, and it answers, "No my life is in the trunk and the branches and the leaves. Keep the branches stripped of leaves, and I shall die," So it is with the great tree of being. Nothing is completely and merely individual.

Of all mad faiths maddest is the faith that we can get rid of faith.

One of the strange phenomena of the last century is the spectacle of religion dropping the appeal of fear while other human interests have picked it up.

The process has now run full circle: Preaching originates in personal counseling; preaching is personal counseling on a group basis; personal counseling originates in preaching. Personal counseling imparts to the preacher a practical familiarity with human nature which he would not otherwise obtain.

Religion is something that only secondarily can be taught. It must must primarily be taught.

The stars are not so strange as the mind that studies them, analyzes their light, and measures their distance.

All intelligent faith in God has behind it a background of humble agnosticism.

Happiness is not mostly pleasure, it is mostly victory.