Nothing else matters much...not wealth, nor learning, nor even health...without this gift: the spiritual capacity to keep zest in living. This is the creed of creeds, the final deposit and distillation of all important faiths: that you should be able to believe in life.
Bitterness imprisons life; love releases it. Bitterness paralyzes life; love empowers it. Bitterness sours life; love sweetens it. Bitterness sickens life; love heals it. Bitterness blinds life; love anoints its eyes.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote contrasts bitterness and love, highlighting how love can liberate and heal, while bitterness can imprison and harm.
This quote by Harry Emerson Fosdick emphasizes the profound impact of love versus bitterness in our lives. It illustrates how holding onto bitterness confines us, leading to negativity and suffering, while embracing love can lead to personal empowerment, healing, and a more fulfilling existence. The metaphorical language conveys that love acts as an antidote to the ailments caused by bitterness, suggesting that love not only enriches our lives but also enhances our perception and understanding of the world.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about overcoming hardship, you could use this quote to highlight the importance of love.
More from Harry Emerson Fosdick
All quotes →No one can get inner peace by pouncing on it, by vigorously willing to have it ... Peace is a consciousness of springs too deep for earthly droughts to dry up. Peace is the gift not of volitional struggle but of spiritual hospitality.
I renounce war for its consequences, for the lies it lives on and propagates, for the undying hatred 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.
He who cannot rest, cannot work; he who cannot let go, cannot hold on; he who cannot find footing, cannot go forward.
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.
Nothing in this world is more inspiring than a soul up against crippling circumstances who carries it off with courage and faith and undefeated character-nothing! See Light From Many Lamps, edited by L. E. Watson, article by H. E. Fosdick, pp. 93-94 re: a serious cripple who succeeded.
Similar quotes
Mary and Jesus had this extraordinary relationship between them. What a teacher Mary is, really. It is the ultimate trusting; that she had to trust God, that she was so privileged to be the mother of the Savior, that she had to stand there as a mother and watch her son being murdered and trust that that is what he came to do.
Narcissus does not fall in love with his reflection because it is beautiful, but because it is his. If it were his beauty that enthralled him, he would be set free in a few years by its fading.
Love is anterior to life, posterior to death, initial of creation, and the exponent of breath.
Your love to me was like an unread book.
I can’t tell you just how wonderful she is. I don’t want you to know. I don’t want any one to know.
A profound love between two people involves, after all, the power and chance of doing profound hurt.