The masses of men live with their backs constantly against the wall. They are the poor, the disinherited, the dispossessed. What does our religion say to them? The issue is not what it counsels them to do for others whose need may be greater, but what religion offers to meet their own needs. The search for an answer to this question is perhaps the most important religious quest of modern life.

— Howard Thurman

Howard Thurman Quotes

Christmas is a mood, a quality, a symbol. It is never merely a fact.

— Howard Thurman

Ask yourself what makes you come alive.

— Howard Thurman

There were long stretches where each of us was engaged in a private world of rapidly shifting vignettes. Always I was overwhelmed by the sheer number of human beings ebbing and flowing like the tides of the sea.

— Howard Thurman

If a man is convinced that he is safe only as long as he uses his power to give others a sense of insecurity, then the measure of their security is in his hands. If security or insecurity is at the mercy of a single individual or group, then control of behavior becomes routine. All imperialism functions in this way.

— Howard Thurman

Keep alive the dream; for as long as a man has a dream in his heart, he cannot lose the significance of living.

— Howard Thurman

There is something in every one of you that waits and listens for the sound of the genuine in yourself. It is the only true guide you will ever have.

— Howard Thurman

It has long been a matter of serious moment that for decades we have studied the various peoples of the world and those who live as our neighbors as objects of missionary endeavor and enterprise without being at all willing to treat them either as brothers or as human beings.

— Howard Thurman

The Christian Church has tended to overlook its Judaic origins, but the fact is that Jesus of Nazareth was a Jew of Palestine when he went about his Father’s business, announcing the acceptable year of the Lord.

— Howard Thurman

Ask what makes you come alive and go do it.

— Howard Thurman

There is a certain grandeur and nobility in administering to another’s need out of one’s fullness and plenty. One.

— Howard Thurman

A man is a man, no more, no less. The awareness of this fact marks the supreme moment of human dignity.

— Howard Thurman

Too often the price exacted by society for security and respectability is that the Christian movement in its formal expression must be on the side of the strong against the weak.

— Howard Thurman

Of all weapons, love is the most deadly and devastating, and few there be who dare trust their fate in its hands.

— Howard Thurman

They who seek God with all their hearts must, however, some day on their way meet Jesus.1.

— Howard Thurman

The effective possibility of a vital religious fellowship which is so creative in character, so convincing in quality that it inspires the mind to multiply experiences of unity – which experiences of unity become over and over and over again more compelling than the concepts, the ways of life, the sects, and creeds that separate men.

— Howard Thurman

In the face of all the uncertainties that surround any decision, the wise man acts in the light of his best judgment illumined by the integrity of his profoundest spiritual insights. Then the rest is in the hands of the future and in the mind of God. The possibility of error, of profound and terrible error, is at once the height and the depth of man’s freedom. For this, God be praised!

— Howard Thurman

It is only when people live in an environment in which they are not required to exert supreme effort into just keeping alive that they seem to be able to select ends besides those of mere physical survival.

— Howard Thurman

Despite all the positive psychological attributes of hatred we have outlined, hatred destroys finally the core of the life of the hater. While it lasts, burning in white heat, its effect seems positive and dynamic. But at last it turns to ash, for it guarantees a final isolation from one’s fellows. It blinds the individual to all values of worth, even as they apply to himself and to his fellows. Hatred bears deadly and bitter fruit. It is blind and nondiscriminating.

— Howard Thurman

The masses of men live with their backs constantly against the wall. They are the poor, the disinherited, the dispossessed. What does our religion say to them? The issue is not what it counsels them to do for others whose need may be greater, but what religion offers to meet their own needs. The search for an answer to this question is perhaps the most important religious quest of modern life.

— Howard Thurman

The awareness of being a child of God tends to stabilize the ego and results in a new courage, fearlessness, and power. I have seen it happen again and again.

— Howard Thurman
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