Unitarian Quotes

• May your life preach more loudly than your lips.

  William Ellery Channing

  I Hate You, May, Lips

  William Ellery Channing, George Channing (1849). “(398 p.)”, p.101

  35 Copy quote

  Show source

• We Unitarian Universalists have inherited a magnificent theological legacy. In a sweeping answer to creeds that divide the human family, Unitarianism proclaims that we spring from a common source; Universalism, that we share a common destiny.

  Forrest Church

  Spring, Destiny, Answers

  22 Copy quote

• I trust there is not a young man now living in the United States who will not die a Unitarian.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Men, Atheism, United States

  Thomas Jefferson (1829). “Memoirs, Correspondence, and Private Papers of Thomas Jefferson: Late President of the United States”, p.358

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• The Unitarian Church has done more than any other church to substitute character for creed, and to say that a man should be judged by his spirit; by the climate of his heart; by the autumn of his generosity; by the spring of his hope; that he should be judged by what he does; by the influence that he exerts, rather than by the mythology he may believe.

  Robert Green Ingersoll

  Spring, Believe, Heart

  Robert Green Ingersoll (1907). “The works of Robert G. Ingersoll”, p.4503, Library of Alexandria

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Life, God, Religious

  Notes on the State of Virginia, query 17 (1781 - 1785)

  50 Copy quote

  Show source

• I am an atheist (or at best a Unitarian who winds up in church quite a lot).

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Atheist, Wind, Religion

  4 Copy quote

• I am anxious to see the doctrine of one god commenced in our state. But the population of my neighborhood is too slender, and is too much divided into other sects to maintain any one preacher well. I must therefore be contented to be an Unitarian by myself, although I know there are many around me who would become so, if once they could hear the questions fairly stated.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Atheism, Population, Doctrine

  Thomas Jefferson (1899). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson”

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• A Unitarian is a person who believes in at most one God.

  Alfred North Whitehead

  Believe, Persons

  9 Copy quote

• People stopped calling themselves Freethinkers because it was so specifically German and anything German was terribly unpopular because of the two world wars. My family became Unitarians instead - it's the same sort of thing.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  War, Two, People

  6 Copy quote

• Manly natural religion - it is not joining the Church; it is not to believe in a creed, Hebrew, Protestant, Catholic, Trinitarian, Unitarian, Nothingarian. It is not to keep Sunday idle; to attend meetings; to be wet with water; to read the Bible; to offer prayers in words; to take bread and wine in the meeting house; love a scape-goat Jesus, or any other theological clap-trap.

  Theodore Parker

  Jesus, Prayer, Believe

  7 Copy quote

• The takeover of Harvard in 1805 by the Unitarians is probably the most important intellectual event in American history - at least from the standpoint of education

  Samuel Blumenfeld

  Education, Intellectual, Important

  4 Copy quote

• I personally have always found the Unitarian faith a source of comfort and help in my daily life.

  Leverett Saltonstall

  Faith, Comfort, Helping

  7 Copy quote

• My family for several generations have been members of the Unitarian Church.

  Leverett Saltonstall

  Unitarian Church, Generations, My Family

  7 Copy quote

• I would say that social work began in my mind in the Unitarian Church when I was ten or twelve years old, and I started to do things that I thought would help other people.

  Roger Nash Baldwin

  Helping Others, Years, Unitarian Church

  53 Copy quote

• I have confidence that the Unitarian Church will steadily grow and will help to sustain many of my fellow citizens in these important days that lie ahead of us.

  Leverett Saltonstall

  Confidence, Lying, Unitarian Church

  7 Copy quote

• I do not espouse the unitarian position. President Clinton's assertion of directive authority over administration, more than President Reagan's assertion of a general supervisory authority, raises serious constitutional questions.

  Elena Kagan

  President, Administration, Serious

  7 Copy quote

• I do not believe in the divinity of Christ, and there are many other of the postulates of the orthodox creed to which I cannot subscribe.

  William Howard Taft

  Believe, Religion, Atheism

  "Biography / Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

  31 Copy quote

  Show source

• UNITARIAN, n. One who denies the divinity of a Trinitarian.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Divinity, Deny

  Ambrose Bierce (2012). “The Devil's Dictionary”, p.132, Courier Corporation

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• I am so much a Unitarian as this: that I believe the human mind can admit but one God, and that every effort to pay religious homage to more than one being goes to take away all right ideas.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  God, Religious, Believe

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.2905, Delphi Classics

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I acknowledge myself a unitarian - Believing that the Father alone, is the supreme God, and that Jesus Christ derived his Being, and all his powers and honors from the Father. ... There is not any reasoning which can convince me, contrary to my senses, that three is one, and one three.

  Abigail Adams

  Jesus, Father, Believe

  Abigail Adams, John P. Kaminski (2009). “The Quotable Abigail Adams”, p.316, Harvard University Press

  28 Copy quote

  Show source

• I knew a witty physician who found theology in the biliary duct, and used to affirm that if there was a disease in the liver, the man became a Calvinist, and if that organ was sound, he became a Unitarian.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Witty, Men, Disease

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1993). “Self-reliance, and Other Essays”, p.86, Courier Corporation

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• We were just floored by the kindness of the people here. The minister of the Unitarian Church in Honolulu invited my family over to his office the day we arrived and told us to make it our headquarters while we looked for a permanent residence. When we couldn't find a place for about a week, he let us live in the church; that's ironic, isn't it? But it points up the vastly different intellectual atmosphere that prevails here in Hawaii.

  Madalyn Murray O'Hair

  Kindness, Unitarian Church, Office

  4 Copy quote

• I had been virtually a Unitarian (as I still am) but without knowing it. The experience of being among Unitarians who did know what they were, and attached much importance to it, was entirely novel to me, but I soon fell into their ways and found it easy to go forward on their road, the more so because the other roads became closed to me.

  L. P. Jacks

  Knowing, Way, Easy

  "The Confession of an Octogenaria". Book by LP Jacks, p. 99, 1942.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The Trinitarian Christ is elevated above us; the Unitarian Christ is merely a moral man; neither can help us. The Christ who is the Incarnation of God, who has not forgotten His divinity, that Christ can help us, in Him there is no imperfection.

  Swami Vivekananda

  Jesus, Men, Imperfection

  Swami Vivekananda (2015). “The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda”, p.3095, Manonmani Publishers

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• In all countries, in all centuries, the primary reason for government to set up schools is to undermine the politically weak by convincing their children that the leaders are good and their policies are wise. The core is religious intolerance. The sides simply change between the Atheists, Catholics, Protestants, Unitarians, etc., depending whether you are talking about the Soviet Union, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, America, etc. A common second reason is to prepare the boys to go to war and the girls to cheer them on.

  Marshall Fritz

  Girl, Wise, Country

  "The Separation of School and State Alliance". Interview with Mary Leggewie, www.homeschoolchristian.com. June 3, 1999.

  6 Copy quote

  Show source