Harry Emerson Fosdick Quotes

I don't think there's any accidents in my life.

My lectures, based on Islamic teachings, were on various subjects. Some of the titles were, 'The Intoxication of Life,' 'The Purpose of Life,' 'The Real Cause of Man's Distress,' 'The Journey to the Goal in Life,' and, one of my favorites, 'The Heart of Man.' They contained important insights that spoke to something deep inside me.

I believe that life is a journey towards God, and that no one has the right to insist that you go a certain road.

When it comes to life, we spin our own yarn, and where we end up is really, in fact, where we always intended to be.

There is perfection in the process-and all life arises out of choice.

Every man's life is a fairy tale written by God's fingers.

Life is what we make it, always has been, always will be.

How could you have had such a wonderful life as me if there wasn't a God directing?

Our life is a book that writes itself and whose principal themes sometimes escape us. We are like characters in a novel who do not always understand what the author wants of them.

I think essentially the meaning of life is probably the journey and not really any one thing or an outcome or a result.

I feel I should be trying to complete my life, whatever 'completing a life' means.

I've always felt that life is a novel, and part of it is written for you, and part of it is written by you. It's up to you to write the ending, ultimately.

I am waiting for a sign that will indicate to me what meaning I must give to my life, but right now my existence is satisfactory.

I was looking for what the meaning of life was.

This life is worth living, we can say, since it is what we make it.

Most people appear to live an unexamined life, cruising through the years without much reflection about what it means, and/or taking what life hands them and believing it's all predestined.

Destiny is what you are supposed to do in life. Fate is what kicks you in the ass to make you do it.

We make our fortunes and we call them fate.

This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one.

Life is short, and therefore, one thing being certain, death, let us take up a great ideal, and give up the whole life to it. For what is the value of life, this vegetating little low life of man? Subordinating it to one high ideal is the only value that life has.

My life has a superb cast, but I cannot figure out the plot.

Our Father refreshes us on the journey with some pleasant inns, but will not encourage us to mistake them for home.

I have come to believe that we do not walk alone in this life. There are others, fellow sojourners, whose journeys are interwoven with ours in seemingly random patterns, yet, in the end, have been carefully placed to reveal a remarkable tapestry. I believe God is the weaver at that loom.

If you’re in your life, chance. Viewed from the outside, like a book you’re reading, it’s fate all the way.

There is also purpose in life which is almost barren of both creation and enjoyment and which admits of but one possibility of high moral behavior: namely, in man's attitude to his existence, an existence restricted by external forces.