Lyman Abbott Men Quotations

Service makes men competent.

Whether we know it or not, we are all in a quest after the Great Companion. All study, all art, all music, all literature, all government, all industry are in essence a search after the Infinite.

Every man's life is, consciously or unconsciously, a quest for the infinite and the eternal reality.

The very essence of rationalism is that it assumes that the reason is the highest faculty in man and the lord of all the rest.

The brotherhood of man is an integral part of Christianity no less than the Fatherhood of God; and to deny the one is no less infidel than to deny the other.

This is what evolution means--ordered progress; development from poorer to richer, from lower to higher, from less to greater--progress. In the material universe, progress to higher forms; in the moral universe, progress to higher life.

Evolution does not attempt to explain the origin of life. It is simply a history of the process of life. With the secret cause of life evolution has nothing to do. A man, therefore, may be a materialistic evolutionist or a theistic evolutionist; that is, he may believe that the cause is some single unintelligent impersonal force, or he may believe that the cause is a wise and beneficent God.

The ideal of character always runs beyond the attainment.

Man puts manacles on his fellow-man; God never.

If I am to tell you how to grow old gracefully, I must tell you at the beginning of life; for no man can grow old gracefully unless he begins early.

He who says, "I know no fear," is no hero. No man knows courage unless he does know fear, and has that in him which is superior to fear, and conquers it.

It is a shame for a man to be a millionaire in possessions if he is not also a millionaire in beneficence.