Theodore Parker
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.Collection: Death
Wealth and want equally harden the human heart.Collection: Money
Politics is the science of urgencies.Collection: Politics
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.Collection: Sad
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.Collection: Truth
Never violate the sacredness of your individual self-respect.
Let others laugh when you sacrifice desire to duty, if they will. You have time and eternity to rejoice in.
Self-denial is indispensable to a strong character, and the highest kind comes from a religious stock.
Remorse is the pain of sin.
Cities have always been the fireplaces of civilization, whence light and heat radiated out into the dark.
The books that help you the most are those which make you think the most.
Outward judgment often fails, inward judgment never.
As society advances the standard of poverty rises.
No man is so great as mankind.
Humanity is the sin of God.
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.Collection: Atheist
First there is the democratic idea: that all men are endowed by their creator with certain natural rights; that these rights are alienable only by the possessor thereof; that they are equal in men; that government is to organize these natural, unalienable and equal rights into institutions designed for the good of the governed, and therefore government is to be of all the people, by all the people, and for all the people. Here government is development, not exploitation.Collection: Men
Democracy means not "I am as good as you are" but "You are as good as I am.".Collection: Freedom
Never violate the sacredness of your individual self-respect. Be true to your own mind and conscience, your heart and your soul. So only can you be true to God.Collection: Heart
Nature is man's religious book, with lessons for every day.Collection: Religious
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.Collection: Life
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.Collection: Long
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.Collection: Book
Magnificent promises are always to be suspected.Collection: Promise
I believe in the admission of women to the full rights of citizenship and share in government, on the express grounds that few women keep house so badly or with such wastefulness as chancellors of the exchequer keep the state.Collection: Believe
The great man is to be the servant of mankind, not they of him.Collection: Greatness
Disappointment is often the salt of life.Collection: Disappointment
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.Collection: Government
A happy wedlock is a long falling in love.Collection: Marriage
All men need something to poetize and idealize their life a little-something which they value for more than its use, and which is a symbol of their emancipation from the mere materialism and drudgery of daily life.Collection: Men
Religion without joy-it is no religion.Collection: Joy
Gratitude is a nice touch of beauty added last of all to the countenance. Giving a classic beauty, an angelic loveliness, to the character.Collection: Inspirational
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.Collection: Fall
Intellect is stronger than cannon.Collection: Stronger
Did the mass of men know the actual selfishness and injustice of their rulers, not a government would stand a year. - The world would foment with revolution.Collection: Men
Wealth and want equally harden the human heart...Collection: Heart
It is not from the tall crowded workhouse of prosperity that men first or clearest see the eternal stars of heaven.Collection: Stars
Democracy is direct self-government over all the people, for all the people, by all the people.Collection: Self
Man is the highest product of his own history. The discoverer finds nothing so grand or tall as himself, nothing so valuable to him. The greatest star is at the small end, of the telescope,--the star that is looking, not looked after nor looked at.Collection: Stars
Temperance is corporeal piety; it is the preservation of divine order in the body.Collection: Divine Order
Wit has its place in debate; in controversy it is a legitimate weapon, offensive and defensive.Collection: Weapons
All men desire to be immortal.Collection: Men
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 miserableCollection: Brother
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.Collection: Greatness
Did not Jesus say, resist not evil — with evil? Is not war the worst form of that evil.Collection: War
Nature is God's Old Testament.Collection: Nature
Humanity is the Son of God.Collection: Son
I ask no risen dust to teach me immortality; I am conscious of eternal life.Collection: Life
Genius is the father of a heavenly line, but the mortal mother, that is industry.Collection: Mother
The miraculous revelation of the Old Testament and the New, the miracles of famous men, Jews, Gentiles, or Christians, — then Franklin had no religion at all; and it would be an insult to say that he believed in the popular theology of his time, or of ours, for I find not a line from his pen indicating any such belief.Collection: Religious