Previous Quotes of the Week
“Universalists are often asked to tell where they stand. The only true answer to give to this question is that we do not stand at all; we move.” – Lewis Beals Fisher, Universalist
“We ask for long life, but ’tis deep life, or noble moments that signify. Let the measure of time be spiritual, not mechanical.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson, Transcendentalist and Unitarian minister
“Ethics thought out is religious thought; ethics felt out is religious feeling, and ethics lived out is the religious life” – William Channing Gannett, Unitarian minister
“Hope is a small coal of fire that lives in old ashes. It is the glowing seed of warmth and light to come.” – Kenneth Patton, Unitarian Universalist minister
“Social advance depends as much upon the process through which it is secured as upon the result itself.” – Jane Addams, Unitarian ethicist
“Civilization is a method of living, an attitude of equal respect for all.” – Jane Addams, Unitarian ethicist
“Lovers of our Land, we are citizens of the world.” – Emily Greene Balch, Unitarian
“Gratitude is a nice touch of beauty added last of all to the countenance, giving a classic beauty, an angelic loveliness, to the character.” – Theodore Parker, Unitarian minister
“I am grateful what I am and have. Thanksgiving is perpetual. It is surprising how contented one can be with nothing definite – only a sense of existence.” – Henry David Thoreau, Unitarian and Transcendentalist
“Have Faith! Have faith in the Eternal Goodness. Believe that the core of the Universe is sound and sweet.” – Anna Garlin Spencer, Unitarian minister
“There are trailblazers working today, heroes if you will, that we are not even aware of. They labor often in obscurity, spreading a message that is often unpopular or, at best, accepted in a lukewarm fashion. The sacrifices these people make are many. They don’t have the best jobs with the highest notoriety and reputation. The heroes of tomorrow are likely obscured from our vision.” – Rev. Richard Hood, Minister Emeritus
“Religion is the fullest sharing of life with others.” – Kenneth Patton, Unitarian Universalist minister
“Against the darkness nature brings / We bring our light, / Our tallest candles burn to guard / The longest night. / We greet the shortest day with song, / And friends with cheer, / We light a wish for peace to serve / The coming year.” – Ernest Sommerfeld, Unitarian Universalist minister
“Each of us is meant to have a character all our own, to be what no other can exactly be, and to do what no other can exactly do.” – William Ellery Channing, Unitarian minister
“Blessed are you who know that the work of the church is transformation of society, who have a vision of Beloved Community transcending the present, and who do not shrink from controversy, sacrifice, or change. Blessed are you indeed.” – Rev. John Buehrens, former president of the Unitarian Universalist Association (1993-2002)
“To breathe deeply is a religious act; for in breathing, our individual spirit partakes of the Infinite Spirit.” – Tom Owen-Towle, Unitarian Universalist minister
“One of the hardest lessons that men of good will have to learn is that peace is not an end in itself. It comes as a by-product of doing good.” – Harry Scholefield, Unitarian Universalist minister
“We live also by love. He who loves no one and is loved by no one is only half alive. We need the daily bread of human affection.” – James Freeman Clarke, Unitarian minister
“We dread frost more than fire. From the beginning . . . Universalists have been in favor of pure, warm, ardent feeling, in the cause of religion.” – Thomas Whittemore, Universalist minister, founder and editor of “The Trumpet and Universalist Magazine”
“God is not a Christian invention nor monopoly, and Universalists find God more fully and truly revealed in the universe and man than in the Bible.” – Rev. Brainard F. Gibbons, Universalist minister
“There is nothing in all the world so important to you as to be loyal to this faith which has placed before you the loftiest ideals, which has comforted you in sorrow, strengthened you for noble duty and made the world beautiful for you.” – Olympia Brown, Universalist minister
“People in difficulty, namely most of us, need to know that it is all right to be joyful in spite of the pain that besets the human way.” – Clarke Dewey Wells, Unitarian Universalist minister
“The idea that we perform any service in order to escape punishment renders that service tedious and irksome to us; while, on the contrary, duty is supreme delight when love is the inducement and the labor.” – Hosea Ballou, Universalist minister
“Now we all start from somewhere. But this faith, if it is true, cannot leave us where we are found, but must transform us into something more, into something holy, into something more aligned with the values we profess as Unitarian Universalists.” – Fred L Hammond, UU minister
“We can structure our faith in happiness and we can cultivate a living faith full of wonder and beautiful fruits. We can remake the world by turning away from feel-good charlatans and toward the prophecy of hope born from the hard work of living faith.” – Valerie Mapstone Ackerman, UU minister
“We honor the religious stories and rituals of the (spring) season that transform fear into love, ignorance and arrogance into wisdom, greed into generosity, despair into hope. We look for and celebrate the return of green to the hillsides, of birdsong to the morning skies, and the lingering colors of delayed dusk.” – Rev. Stefanie Etzbach-Dale, UU minister
“Spirituality can be defined as that which puts us in touch with something that is fine and good; if you experience God or some kind of divinity in your life, spirituality is that which puts you in touch with that which is divine; and if your experience of life doesn’t include God or divinity, spirituality is that which puts you in touch with that which is highest and best in humanity and nature.” – Dan Harper, UU minister
“The belief that the great Johovah was offended by his creatures to that degree, that nothing but the death of Christ, or endless misery of mankind, could appease his anger, is an idea that has done more injury to the Christian religion than the writings of all its opposers…” – Hosea Ballou, Universalist minister
“Jesus taught us…to love God and to love our neighbor…The word neighbor applies to one, and all. Our neighbor is the small child dying of AIDS in Africa, the elderly Thai woman scratching in the rice paddy, the Amazonian native pressed away from his home by a burning forest. Our neighbor lives, and dies, in Tonga, in Estonia, in Afghanistan. Our neighbor wears a hoodie. Our neighborhood knows no boundaries, and we are instructed to love every neighbor.” – Lee Richards, Universalist pastor
“Creation is too grand, complex, and mysterious to be captured in a narrow creed.” – William Schultz, UU minister and president of the UU Service Committee
“More than any other religious tradition, Unitarian Universalism brings together perennial religious truths across traditions and cultures, and finds contemporary language to communicate them. Together we are creating an evolving, changing, breathing religion for our time.” – Sam Trumbore, UU minister
“The first time I attended a Unitarian Church, I was astonished by the number of faces I recognized there. If only one of these friends or acquaintances had told me about the church, I would have found it years earlier.” – Carol Hepokoski, UU minister
“A creed is a statement of beliefs which is used AS A TEST FOR MEMBERSHIP. (‘Believe this or go elsewhere.’) We don’t have those.” – Christine Robinson, UU minister
