Quotes from Theodore Parker

Yet, if he would, man cannot live all to this world. If not religious, he will be superstitious. IF he worship not the true God, he will have his idols.

Disappointment is often the salt of life.

Outward judgment often fails, inward judgment never.

Self-denial is indispensable to a strong character, and the highest kind comes from a religious stock.

[America is] 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.

As society advances the standard of poverty rises.

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.

Truth never yet fell dead in the streets; it has such affinity with the soul of man, the seed however broadcast will catch somewhere and produce its hundredfold.

The miser, starving his brother's body, starves also his own soul, and at death shall creep out of his great estate of injustice, poor and naked and miserable.

Politics is the science of urgencies.

A democracy—that is a government of all the people, by all the people, for all the people; of course, a government of the principles of eternal justice, the unchanging law of God; for shortness' sake I will call it the idea of Freedom.

It is very sad for a man to make himself servant to a single thing his manhood all taken out of him by the hydraulic pressure of excessive business.

Let others laugh when you sacrifice desire to duty, if they will. You have time and eternity to rejoice in.

Let us do our duty, in our shop in our kitchen, in the market, the street, the office, the school, the home, just as faithfully as if we stood in the front rank of some great battle, and knew that victory for mankind depends on our bravery, strength, and skill. When we do that, the humblest of us will be serving in that great army which achieves the welfare of the world.

Magnificent promises are always to be suspected.

Remorse is the pain of sin.

The books that help you most are those which make you think that 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.

Wealth and want equally harden the human heart, like frost and fire both are alien to human flesh.

The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.

I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways; I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight, I can divine it by conscience. And from what I see I am sure it bends towards justice.

The books that help you most are those which make you think the most. A great book that comes from a great thinker is a ship of thought, deep freighted with truth and beauty.

Never violate the sacredness of your individual self-respect.

To make one half the human race consume its energies in the functions of housekeeper, wife and mother is a monstrous waste of the most precious material God ever made.

Democracy means not "I am as good as you are" but "You are as good as I am.