Theodore Parker: There is no college for the conscience.

Never violate the sacredness of your individual self-respect.

Theodore Parker

respect individuality self-esteem

Democracy means not "I am as good as you are" but "You are as good as I am.".

Theodore Parker

diversity freedom mean

I believe in the admission of women to the full rights of citizenship and share in government, on the express grounds that few women keep house so badly or with such wastefulness as chancellors of the exchequer keep the state.

Theodore Parker

government rights believe

Outward judgment often fails, inward judgment never.

Theodore Parker

inward judgment failing

I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways; I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight, I can divine it by conscience. And from what I see I am sure it bends towards justice.

Theodore Parker

curves eye atheist

Nature is man's religious book, with lessons for every day.

Theodore Parker

nature religious book

All men need something to poetize and idealize their life a little-something which they value for more than its use, and which is a symbol of their emancipation from the mere materialism and drudgery of daily life.

Theodore Parker

use men needs

The books that help you the most are those which make you think the most.

Theodore Parker

reading education book

Never violate the sacredness of your individual self-respect. Be true to your own mind and conscience, your heart and your soul. So only can you be true to God.

Theodore Parker

soul self heart

First there is the democratic idea: that all men are endowed by their creator with certain natural rights; that these rights are alienable only by the possessor thereof; that they are equal in men; that government is to organize these natural, unalienable and equal rights into institutions designed for the good of the governed, and therefore government is to be of all the people, by all the people, and for all the people. Here government is development, not exploitation.

Theodore Parker

rights men ideas

A happy wedlock is a long falling in love.

Theodore Parker

falling-in-love marriage long

Magnificent promises are always to be suspected.

Theodore Parker

magnificent promise

Let us do our duty in our shop or 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 depended 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.

Theodore Parker

home success life

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

gratitude appreciation inspirational

A democracy,- that is a government of all the people, by all the people, for all the people; of course, a government of the principles of eternal justice, the unchanging law of God; for shortness' sake I will call it the idea of Freedom.

Theodore Parker

government law ideas

To obtain a knowledge of duty, a man is not sent away, outside of himself, to ancient documents; for the only rule of faith a practice, the Word, is very nigh him, even in his heart, and by this word he is to try all documents.

Theodore Parker

practice heart men

I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one. . . . But from what I see I am sure it bends toward justice.

Theodore Parker

oval justice long

The Roman Christian mythology (and theology) discourages the vice of licentiousness, and so this is better than the heathen, but it encourages bigotry, hypocrisy, cant, and many another vice which the older Mother of Abominations kept clear from.

Theodore Parker

hypocrisy christian mother

That which is called liberality is frequently nothing more than the vanity of giving.

Theodore Parker

liberality vanity giving

Every man has at times in his mind the Ideal of what he should be, but is not. This ideal may be high and complete, or it may be quite low and insufficient; yet in all men, that really seek to improve, it is better than the actual character... Man never falls so low, that he can see nothing higher than himself.

Theodore Parker

character men fall