I renounce war. I renounce war because of what it does to our own men. I have watched them coming gassed from the front-line trenches. I have seen the long, long hospital trains filled with their mutilated bodies. I have heard the cries of the crazed and the prayers of those who wanted to die and could not, and I remember the maimed and ruined men for whom the war is not yet over. I renounce war because of what it compels us to do to our enemies, bombing their mothers in villages, starving their children by blockades, laughing over our coffee cups about every damnable thing we have been able to do to them. I renounce war for its consequences, for the lies it lives on and propagates, for the undying hatreds it arouses, for the dictatorships it puts in place of democracy, for the starvation that stalks after it. I renounce war, and never again, directly or indirectly, will I sanction or support another.
Harry Emerson Fosdick (1878-1969) American clergyman, author, teacher
“The Unknown Soldier,” Armistice Day sermon, Riverside Church, New York City (1933-11-12)
(Source)
Reprinted in The Secret of Victorious Living (1934).
Fosdick had been a vocal proponent of the US entering World War I, and served in France as a chaplain to the American troops. His experiences there led him to become a leading pacifist (but anti-isolationist) during the post-war years. He maintained that position into World War II and through the 1950s and 60s.
Quotations by:
Fosdick, Harry Emerson
When will the churches learn that intolerance, personal or ecclesiastical, is an evidence of weakness? The confident can afford to be calm and kindly; only the fearful must defame and exclude.
Harry Emerson Fosdick (1878-1969) American clergyman, author, teacher
“Tolerance,” sec. 3, Adventurous Religion (1926)
(Source)
He who chooses the beginning of a road chooses the place it leads to. It is the means that determines the end.
Harry Emerson Fosdick (1878-1969) American clergyman, author, teacher
(Attributed)
Religion is not a burden, not a weight, it is wings.
Harry Emerson Fosdick (1878-1969) American clergyman, author, teacher
(Attributed)
Hating people is like burning down your own house to get rid of a rat.
Harry Emerson Fosdick (1878-1969) American clergyman, author, teacher
(Attributed)
Hold a picture of yourself long and steadily enough in your mind’s eye, and you will be drawn toward it.
Harry Emerson Fosdick (1878-1969) American clergyman, author, teacher
(Attributed)
He who knows no hardships will know no hardihood. He who faces no calamity will need no courage. Mysterious though it is, the characteristics in human nature which we love best grow in a soil with a strong mixture of troubles.
Harry Emerson Fosdick (1878-1969) American clergyman, author, teacher
(Attributed)
God is not a cosmic bell-boy for whom we can press a button to get things done.
Harry Emerson Fosdick (1878-1969) American clergyman, author, teacher
(Attributed)
Don’t simply retire from something; have something to retire to.
Harry Emerson Fosdick (1878-1969) American clergyman, author, teacher
(Attributed)
No horse gets anywhere until he is harnessed. No stream or gas drives anything until it is confined. No Niagara is ever turned into light and power until it is tunneled. No life ever grows great until it is focused, dedicated, disciplined.
Harry Emerson Fosdick (1878-1969) American clergyman, author, teacher
Living Under Tension (1941)
I would rather live in a world where my life is surrounded by mystery than live in a world so small that my mind could comprehend it.
Harry Emerson Fosdick (1878-1969) American clergyman, author, teacher
Riverside Sermons, “The Mystery of Life” (1958)
The fact that astronomies change while the stars abide is a true analogy of every realm of human life and thought, religion not least of all. No existent theology can be a final formulation of spiritual truth.
Harry Emerson Fosdick (1878-1969) American clergyman, author, teacher
The Living of These Days (1956)