27 Theodore Parker Quotes

Theodore Parker quotes

1. 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.

2. Truth stood on one side and Ease on the other; it has often been so.

3. Man never falls so low that he can see nothing higher than himself.

4. All men desire to be immortal.

5. A democracy,-that is a government of all the people, by all the people, for all the people; 1 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.

6. As society advances the standard of poverty rises.

7. Every rose is an autograph from the hand of the Almighty God on this world about us. He has inscribed His thoughts in these marvelous hieroglyphics which sense and science have been these many thousand years seeking to understand.

8. 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.

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

10. Never violate the sacredness of your individual self-respect.

11. Outward judgment often fails, inward judgment never.

12. Politics is the science of urgencies.

13. Remorse is the pain of sin.

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

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

1. 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.

2. I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one. . . . But from what I see I am sure it bends toward justice.

3. For a thousand years no king in Christendom has shown such greatness or given so high a type of manly virtue.

4. Let us do our duty in our shop or 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 depended 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.

5. Temperance is corporeal piety; it is the preservation of divine order in the body.

6. Science is the natural ally of religion.

7. The lottery of honest labor, drawn by time, is the only one whose prizes are worth taking up and carrying home.

8. The joy of heaven will begin as soon as we attain the character of heaven, and do its duties.

9. Mankind never loses any good thing, physical, intellectual, or moral, till it finds a better, and then the loss is a gain. No steps backward is the rule of human history. What is gained by one man is invested in all men, and is a permanent investment for all time.

10. Manly natural religion - it is not joining the Church; it is not to believe in a creed, Hebrew, Protestant, Catholic, Trinitarian, Unitarian, Nothingarian. It is not to keep Sunday idle; to attend meetings; to be wet with water; to read the Bible; to offer prayers in words; to take bread and wine in the meeting house; love a scape-goat Jesus, or any other theological clap-trap.

11. The books which help you most are those which make you think the most. The hardest way of learning is by easy reading; every man that tries it finds it so. But a great book that comes from a great thinker, — it is a ship of thought, deep freighted with truth, with beauty too.

12. What succeeds we keep, and it becomes the habit of mankind.