Theodore Parker

Who was Theodore Parker?

Theodore Parker was an American Transcendentalist and reforming minister of the Unitarian church. A reformer and abolitionist, his words and quotations which he popularized would later inspire speeches by Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King, Jr.

Famous Quotes:

• It is very sad for a man to make himself servant to a single thing; his manhood all taken out of him by the hydraulic pressure of excessive business.
• The books that help you most are those which make you think that most. The hardest way of learning is that of easy reading; but a great book that comes from a great thinker is a ship of thought, deep freighted with truth and beauty.
• Never violate the sacredness of your individual self-respect.
• Self-denial is indispensable to a strong character, and the highest kind comes from a religious stock.
• Let others laugh when you sacrifice desire to duty, if they will. You have time and eternity to rejoice in.
• Remorse is the pain of sin.
• Let us do our duty, in our shop in our kitchen, in the market, the street, the office, the school, the home, just as faithfully as if we stood in the front rank of some great battle, and knew that victory for mankind depends on our bravery, strength, and skill. When we do that, the humblest of us will be serving in that great army which achieves the welfare of the world.
• As society advances the standard of poverty rises.
• Politics is the science of urgencies.
• Wealth and want equally harden the human heart, like frost and fire both are alien to human flesh.