Howard Thurman Quotes

Of all weapons, love is the most deadly and devastating, and few there be who dare trust their fate in its hands.

The Christian Church has tended to overlook its Judaic origins, but the fact is that Jesus of Nazareth was a Jew of Palestine when he went about his Father’s business, announcing the acceptable year of the Lord.

The years, the months, the days, and the hours have flown by my open window. Here and there an incident, a towering moment, a naked memory, an etched countenance, a whisper in the dark, a golden glow these and much more are the woven fabric of the time I have lived.

. . . consider the conflict between loyalty to an ultimate goal and loyalty to an immediate goal, both of which are good but one seems to be better than the other, though more remote. The platitude, A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, is one answer. How often do we seize upon the immediate good because it is within reach and thereby sacrifice the better thing because the time interval is so great that we fear we shall die before we realize it! To escape the risk of losing all, we accept what is available.

"There are two questions that we have to ask ourselves. The 1st is " Where am I going?" and the 2nd is "Who will go with me?"
If you ever get these questions in the wrong order , you are in trouble."

A man is a man, no more, no less. The awareness of this fact marks the supreme moment of human dignity.

When I was older and was half through college, I chanced to be spending a few days at home near the end of summer vacation. With a feeling of great temerity I asked her one day why it was that she would not let me read any of the Pauline letters. What she told me I shall never forget. “During the days of slavery,” she said, “the master’s minister would occasionally hold services for the slaves. Old man McGhee was so mean that he would not let a Negro minister preach to his slaves. Always the white minister used as his text something from Paul. At least three or four times a year he used as a text: ‘Slaves, be obedient to them that are your masters …, as unto Christ.’ Then he would go on to show how it was God’s will that we were slaves and how, if we were good and happy slaves, God would bless us. I promised my Maker that if I ever learned to read and if freedom ever came, I would not read that part of the Bible.” Since

There is something in every one of you that waits and listens for the sound of the genuine in yourself. It is the only true guide you will ever have. And if you cannot hear it, you will all of your life spend your days on the ends of strings that somebody else pulls.