Harry Fosdick

The world is moving so fast these days that the man who says it can't be done is generally interrupted by someone doing it.

One must have the adventurous daring to accept oneself as a bundle of possibilities and undertake the most interesting game in the world - making the most of one's best.

One of the most amazing things ever said on this earth is Jesus's statement: "He that is greatest among you shall be your servant." Nobody has one chance in a billion of being thought really great after a century has passed except those who have been the servants of all. That strange realist from Bethlehem knew that.

Granted the endless variations of moral customs, still the essential standards persist. As in a scientific laboratory, all else may change but the standards are unalterable- disinterested love of truth, fidelity to facts, accuracy in measurement, exactness of verification-so, in life as a whole, the towering ethical criteria remain unshaken. Falsehood is never better than truth, theft better than than honesty, treachery better than loyalty, cowardice better than courage.

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

Bitterness imprisons life; love releases it.

I would rather live in a world where life is surrounded by mystery, than live in a world so small that my mind could comprehend it.

It is going to be a long, hard haul; it will require patience, courage, faith that hangs on when hope fails, if we are to tame the rude barbarity of man, so that the atomic age becomes a blessing, not a curse. There never was such a day for the Christian gospel. God help us all in these years ahead to make that gospel live in men and nations!

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

Life is a library owned by an author. It has a few books which he wrote himself, but most of them were written for him.