Quotes by Phillips Brooks

“To keep clear of concealment to keep clear of the need of concealment to do nothing that he might not do out on the middle of Boston Common at noonday -I cannot say how more and more that seems to ...”

“It does not take great men to do great things it only takes consecrated men.”

“O little town of Bethlehem,How still we see thee lie!Above thy deep and dreamless sleepThe silent stars go by;Yet in thy dark streets shinethThe everlasting Light;The hopes and fears of all the yea...”

“O little Town of Bethlehem (1868), reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).”

“O morning stars, together Proclaim the holy birth!And praises sing to God the King, And peace to men on earth.”

“For greatness after all, in spite of its name, appears to be not so much a certain size as a certain quality in human lives. It may be present in lives whose range is very small.”

“O, do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men! Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers. Pray for powers equal to your tasks! Then the doing of your work shall be no miracle. But you sha...”

“Life comes before literature, as the material always comes before the work. The hills are full of marble before the world blooms with statues.”

“The absence of sentimentalism in Christ's relations with men is what makes His tenderness so exquisitely touching.”

“Never be afraid to bring the transcendent mysteries of our faith, Christ's life and death and resurrection, to the help of the humblest and commonest of human wants.”

“There are two ways of defending a castle; one by shutting yourself up in it, and guarding every loop-hole; the other by making it an open centre of operations from which all the surrounding country...”

“Duty makes us do things well, but love makes us do them beautifully.”

“Men and women grow older in this world of ours, and as the years advance they change. Of all the changes that they undergo those of their moral natures are the most painful to watch. The boy change...”

“The worst thing about all this staining power of the world is the way in which we come to think of it as inevitable. ... It is not true. ... Social life is lighted up with the lustre of the white, ...”

“When a man comes not merely to tolerate, but to boast of the stains that the world has flung upon him; when he wears his spots as if they were jewels; when he flaunts his unscrupulousness, and his ...”

“They say the doctors and the nurses are least likely to catch the epidemic. If you have a friend who is dishonest or impure, the surest way to save yourself from him is to try to save him.”

“How prudently most men creep into nameless graves, while now and then one or two forget themselves into immortality.”

“The noblest of men and friends has left the world, — Phillips Brooks. One month ago this morning he breathed his last. He, with whom it was impossible to associate the idea of death; — was? — is so...”