Phillips Brooks

It is good for us to think that no grace or blessing is truly ours till we are aware that God has blessed some one else with it through us.

The more man becomes irradiated with Divinity, the more, not the less, truly he is man.

No man ever yet thought whether he was preaching well without weakening his sermon.

No man dares to condemn the Christian faith today, because the Christian faith has not been tried. Not until men get rid of the thought that it is a poor machine, an expedient for saving them from suffering and pain; not until they get the grand idea of it as the great power of God present in and through the lives of men; not until then does Christianity enter upon its true trial and become ready to show what it can do.

A prayer in its simplest definition is merely a wish turned Godward.

Sad will be the day for every man when he becomes absolutely contented with the life that he is living, with the thoughts that he is thinking, with the deeds that he is doing, when there is not forever beating at the doors of his soul some great desire to do something larger, which he knows that he was meant and made to do because he is the child of God.

Charity should begin at home, but should not stay there.

Set yourself earnestly to see what you are made to do, and then set yourself earnestly to do it.

Be patient and understanding. Life is too short to be vengeful or malicious.

There is no life so humble that, if it be true and genuinely human and obedient to God, it may not hope to shed some of His light. There is no life so meager that the greatest and wisest of us can afford to despise it. We cannot know at what moment it may flash forth with the life of God.

We may say that on the first Good Friday afternoon was completed that great act by which light conquered darkness and goodness conquered sin. That is the wonder of our Saviour's crucifixion.

You may look through the streets of heaven, asking each how they came to b there, and you will look in vain everywhere for a person who is morally and spiritually strong, whose strength did not come to him in struggle. There is no exception anywhere. Every true strength is gained in struggle.

Be such a man, and live such a life, that if every man were such as you, and every life a life like yours, this earth would be God's Paradise.

Let every man and woman count himself immortal. Let him catch the revelation of Jesus in his resurrection. Let him say not merely, "Christ is risen," but "I shall rise."

Where charity stands watching and faith holds wide the door the dark night wakes - the glory breaks, Christmas comes once more.

It is while you are patiently toiling at the little tasks of life that the meaning and shape of the great whole of life dawn on you.

Christianity helps us face the music even when we don't like the tune.