Georgia Harkness Quotes

• The tendency to turn human judgments into divine commands makes religion one of the most dangerous forces in the world.

  Georgia Harkness

  Atheism, World, Judgment

  Georgia Elma Harkness (1937). “The Recovery of Ideals”

  56 Copy quote

• Eternal life is personal existence in continuity with the present life, but transfigured.

  Georgia Harkness

  Life Is, Eternity, Existence

  18 Copy quote

• One can be coerced to church, but not to worship.

  Georgia Harkness

  Religion, Church, Worship

  13 Copy quote

• The sooner the doctrine of original sin disappears, the better it is for theology.

  Georgia Harkness

  Atheism, Doctrine, Sin

  8 Copy quote

• To keep God at the center of one's life requires frequent renewal of power through prayer.

  Georgia Harkness

  God, Prayer, Godly

  9 Copy quote

• Prayer is the opening of the soul to God so that he can speak to us.

  Georgia Harkness

  Prayer, Soul, Speak

  10 Copy quote

• The great danger is that in the confession of any collective sin, one shall confess the sins of others and forget our own.

  Georgia Harkness

  Sin, Forget, Confession

  13 Copy quote

• Religion is the most widely debated and least agreed upon phenomenon of human history.

  Georgia Harkness

  Religion, Phenomenon, Humans

  11 Copy quote

• To pray well one must pray much.

  Georgia Harkness

  Prayer, Praying, Wells

  Georgia Elma Harkness (1948). “Prayer and the common life”

  7 Copy quote

• the truth is seldom found in extremes. Central truths can be revolutionary if put to work.

  Georgia Harkness

  Truth, Revolutionary, Found

  Georgia Elma Harkness (1949). “The Gospel and Our World”

  14 Copy quote

• ... we all know how to pray better than we practice what we know!

  Georgia Harkness

  Practice, Praying, Know How

  13 Copy quote

• religion is perhaps its own worst enemy. For religion, masquerading under the guise of archaic creeds, and impossible literalisms, and ecclesiasticism indifferent to human needs, has brought about an inevitable and in many respects wholesome revulsion.

  Georgia Harkness

  Worst Enemy, Religion, Needs

  12 Copy quote

• Prayer is essentially a process by which ideals are enabled to become operative in our lives. It may be more than this, but it is at least this.

  Georgia Harkness

  Prayer, May, Process

  Georgia Elma Harkness (1937). “The Recovery of Ideals”

  10 Copy quote

• The perpetual danger which besets religion is that it may substitute gentility and aestheticism for prophetic insight and power.

  Georgia Harkness

  Religion, May, Danger

  10 Copy quote

• Everybody, whether or not he puts the question vocally, wants to know whether life has any meaning, what his relation is to 'whatever gods there be,' why he is here, what his destiny is, how sin and pain may be overcome, whether prayer matters, what lies beyond death for himself and his loved ones.

  Georgia Harkness

  Prayer, Pain, Lying

  7 Copy quote

• the principal sources of human misery may fairly be said to lie in the over-possession, under-possession, and the unwise use of economic goods.

  Georgia Harkness

  Lying, Use, May

  9 Copy quote

• Life is a continual alternation of rest and action, of the need of comfort and the need of power.

  Georgia Harkness

  Life, Comfort, Needs

  Georgia Elma Harkness (1948). “Prayer and the common life”

  9 Copy quote

• churches, like all the rest of our major institutions, are rooted in capitalism. For a church to attack capitalism is to 'bite the hand that feeds it.

  Georgia Harkness

  Hands, Religion, Church

  7 Copy quote

• Persons who would never think of announcing boldly to the world, 'I am a scholar,' 'I am a great artist,' 'I am a beautiful woman,' nevertheless seem to think it wholly within the bounds of good taste to announce that they are Christians!

  Georgia Harkness

  Beautiful, Christian, Artist

  7 Copy quote

• while religion is ethical, it by no means follows that ethics is religion.

  Georgia Harkness

  Mean, Religion, Ethics

  7 Copy quote

• To discover, or recover, the sense of religious certainty one must worship.

  Georgia Harkness

  Religious, Worship, Certainty

  4 Copy quote

• a sick society, unlike a sick individual, fares best under the ministration of many doctors.

  Georgia Harkness

  Doctors, Sick, Reform

  4 Copy quote

• the most common type of pessimism is neither philosophical nor religious: it is the pessimism of thwarted desire. ... It is the cynical sneer of the man who, seeking roses, finds only ashes.

  Georgia Harkness

  Religious, Philosophical, Men

  5 Copy quote

• Many now veer away from the time-honored use of the term Father as applied to the Christian God ... This difficulty rests mainly, I believe, on failure to distinguish between a symbol and a definition.

  Georgia Harkness

  God, Christian, Father

  4 Copy quote

• love is always in danger of being sentimentalized.

  Georgia Harkness

  Love Is, Danger

  7 Copy quote

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