Quotes from Lyman Abbott

The ideal of character always runs beyond the attainment.

If I am to tell you how to grow old gracefully, I must tell you at the beginning of life; for no man can grow old gracefully unless he begins early.

He who would see God must use the faculty with which God is seen; and if he would do this, he must let men who are rich in the faculty which perceives the invisible, — which looks not at the things which are seen and are temporal, but at the things which are not seen and are eternal, — guide, teach, inspire him.

The spirit which in the modern Church has sometimes sought to found Christian faith on signs and wonders appears to me to be almost as much one of unbelief as the spirit which outside the Church denies the miraculous altogether.

Do not think that you can fight corruption without while you let corruption fester within.

A golden thread, woven into the Old Testament history, renders the various lives whose stories it recounts only different phases of the same experience. That golden thread is faith.

Brevity is the soul of the prayer-meeting.

We lawyers learn to study the faces of our witnesses, to form quick judgments, and to act upon them.

You, mother, are not responsible to set the whole world right; you are responsible only to make one pure, sacred, and divine household.

I hear men talk as though prayer were of no avail unless we believe beforehand with assurance that we were going to receive all for which we asked. It is not true. We are not heard for our much asking, nor for much our believing, but for God's great mercy's sake.

I am not afraid to trust myself, my friends, or the heathen in the hands of him whose mercy endureth forever.

Did you ever consider the difference between a real flower and a wax imitation? The latter may be quite as beautiful. It may deceive you at first. And yet when you discover the deception you are disappointed. "The lack of fragrance," Jennie suggests. No! the flower may be odorless. It is the lack of life. I do not know what there is in that mystic life that should make such a difference. But I am sure that the charm of the flower is in its life.

If the consciousness of God is possible to all healthful souls, why are so many men and women without this consciousness? There are men and women, not a few, who do not want God. They would be very glad to have God if he were always on their side; glad to have God if he would always do what they want him to do. But a supreme will ... a masterful will, a will to which they must conform, they do not want.

It is only by human experiences that we can interpret the Divine.

The logical outcome of the Pro-Slavery party was the Southern Confederacy; the logical outcome of the Anti-Slavery party was the Republican party; the logical outcome of the conflict between the two was the Civil War.

But the heart finds no refuge in an Infinite and an Eternal Energy from which all things proceed. That refuge is found only in the faith that God has entered a human life, taken the helm, ruled heart and hand and tongue, written in terms of human experience the biography of God in history, revealed in the teaching of Christ the truth of God, in the life of Christ the character of God, in the passion of Christ the suffering of God.

He who says, "I know no fear," is no hero. No man knows courage unless he does know fear, and has that in him which is superior to fear, and conquers it.

I have feelings, but my pen cannot and will not write feelings; nay, my heart has no mind that can coin them into words.

There can be no virtue without temptation; for virtue is victory over temptation.

If I had only life's book to read ... I should not believe in a God of love. I should turn Persian, and believe in two gods, one of love and good-will, one of hate and malice.

God is constantly better than his promise. He does not limit Himself by our expectations.

I believe that God is the Great Companion, that we are not left orphans, that we may have comradeship with him.

The Bible is the casket which contains the image of my Master.

This is what evolution means--ordered progress; development from poorer to richer, from lower to higher, from less to greater--progress. In the material universe, progress to higher forms; in the moral universe, progress to higher life.