It is going to be a long, hard haul; it will require patience, courage, faith that hangs on when hope fails, if we are to tame the rude barbarity of man, so that the atomic age becomes a blessing, not a curse. There never was such a day for the Christian gospel. God help us all in these years ahead to make that gospel live in men and nations!
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the need for patience and courage to confront humanity's darker nature in order to ensure a positive future.
In this quote, Harry Emerson Fosdick reflects on the challenges humanity faces when confronting its own barbarity, especially in the context of the atomic age. He calls for the strength of patience, courage, and faith, urging that these virtues are essential in transforming potential destruction into a blessing, and advocates for the Christian gospel as a guiding force in overcoming adversity and promoting a better world.
In practice
During a speech about nuclear disarmament, this quote could highlight the importance of moral integrity.
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.
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.
When I see an object there is no will; when its sensations are carried to the brain, there comes the reaction, which says "Do this", or "Do not do this", and this state of the ego-substance is what is called will
For the world is movement, and you cannot be stationary in your attitude toward something that is moving.
The battle between good and evil is endlessly fascinating because we are participants every day.
Punishment is justice for the unjust.
The first-beginnings of things cannot be distinguished by the eye.
It is never right to do wrong or to requite wrong with wrong, or when we suffer evil to defend ourselves by doing evil in return.
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