128 Quotes by Theodore Parker

Every man has at times in his mind the ideal of what he should be, but is not. This ideal may be high and complete, or it may be quite low and insufficient; yet in all men that really seek to improve, it is better than the actual character. * * * Man never falls so low that he can see nothing higher than himself.

We are a rebellious nation. Our whole history is treason; our blood was attained before we were born; our creeds were infidelity to the mother church; our constitution treason to our fatherland.

There is what I call the American idea. . . . This idea demands, as the proximate organization thereof, a democracy,--that is, a government of all the people, by all the people, for all the people. For shortness' sake I will call it the idea of Freedom.

The books that help you most are those which make you think the most. The hardest way of learning is that of easy reading; but a great book that comes from a great thinker is a ship of thought, deep freighted with truth and beauty.

There never was a great truth but it was reverenced; never a great institution, nor a great man, that did not, sooner or later, receive the reverence of mankind.

What a joy is there in a good book, writ by some great master of thought, who breaks into beauty as in summer the meadow into grass and dandelions and violets, with geraniums and manifold sweetness.

Pride is both a virtue and a vice.

The duty of labor is written on a man's body: in the stout muscle of the arm,, and the delicate machinery of the hand.

Justice is the idea of God, the ideal of man, the rule of conduct writ in the nature of mankind.