Phillips Brooks Quotes

Phillips Brooks was an American Episcopal clergyman and author, long the Rector of Boston's Trinity Church and briefly Bishop of Massachusetts,

and particularly remembered as lyricist of the Christmas hymn, "O Little Town of Bethlehem".

In the Episcopal liturgical calendar he is remembered on January 23. Wikipedia  

✵ 13. December 1835 – 23. January 1893
Phillips Brooks photo
Phillips Brooks: 16   quotes 1   like

Famous Phillips Brooks Quotes

“Never be afraid to bring the transcendent mysteries of our faith, Christ's life and death and resurrection, to the help of the humblest and commonest of human wants.”

Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 88.

“Duty makes us do things well, but love makes us do them beautifully.”

As quoted in Primary Education (1916) by Elizabeth Peabody, p. 190

Phillips Brooks Quotes about men

“The absence of sentimentalism in Christ's relations with men is what makes His tenderness so exquisitely touching.”

Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 59.

“How prudently most men creep into nameless graves, while now and then one or two forget themselves into immortality.”

Actually said by Wendell Phillips, on the murder of Elijah Parish Lovejoy, which occurred on November 7, 1837.
Misattributed

“O morning stars, together
Proclaim the holy birth!
And praises sing to God the King,
And peace to men on earth.”

O little Town of Bethlehem, 2nd stanza http://books.google.com/books?id=Uh03AAAAMAAJ&q=%22O+morning+stars+together+Proclaim+the+holy+birth+And+praises+sing+to+God+the+King+And+peace+to+men+on+earth%22&pg=PA15#v=onepage (1868).

“O, do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men! Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers. Pray for powers equal to your tasks! Then the doing of your work shall be no miracle. But you shall be a miracle.”

"Going up to Jerusalem", Twenty Sermons (1886), p. 330.
Context: O, do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men! Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers. Pray for powers equal to your tasks! Then the doing of your work shall be no miracle. But you shall be a miracle. Every day you shall wonder at yourself, at the richness of life which has come to you by the grace of God.

Phillips Brooks Quotes

“Yet in thy dark streets shineth
The everlasting Light;
The hopes and fears of all the years
Are met in thee to-night.”

O little Town of Bethlehem (1868), reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
Context: p>O little town of Bethlehem,
How still we see thee lie!
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep
The silent stars go by;Yet in thy dark streets shineth
The everlasting Light;
The hopes and fears of all the years
Are met in thee to-night.</p

“There are two ways of defending a castle; one by shutting yourself up in it, and guarding every loop-hole; the other by making it an open centre of operations from which all the surrounding country may be subdued. Is not the last the truest safety? Jesus was never guarding Himself, but always invading the lives of others with His holiness.”

Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 108.
Context: There are two ways of defending a castle; one by shutting yourself up in it, and guarding every loop-hole; the other by making it an open centre of operations from which all the surrounding country may be subdued. Is not the last the truest safety? Jesus was never guarding Himself, but always invading the lives of others with His holiness. There never was such an open life as His; and yet the force with which His character and love flowed out upon the world kept back, more strongly than any granite wall of prudent caution could have done, the world from pressing in on Him. His life was like an open stream which keeps the sea from flowing up into it by the eager force with which it flows down into the sea. He was so anxious that the world should be saved that therein was His salvation from the world. He labored so to make the world pure that He never even had to try to be pure Himself.

“Life comes before literature, as the material always comes before the work.”

Literature and Life, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
Context: Life comes before literature, as the material always comes before the work. The hills are full of marble before the world blooms with statues.

“O little town of Bethlehem,
How still we see thee lie!”

O little Town of Bethlehem (1868), reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
Context: p>O little town of Bethlehem,
How still we see thee lie!
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep
The silent stars go by;Yet in thy dark streets shineth
The everlasting Light;
The hopes and fears of all the years
Are met in thee to-night.</p

“His life was like an open stream which keeps the sea from flowing up into it by the eager force with which it flows down into the sea. He was so anxious that the world should be saved that therein was His salvation from the world. He labored so to make the world pure that He never even had to try to be pure Himself.”

Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 108.
Context: There are two ways of defending a castle; one by shutting yourself up in it, and guarding every loop-hole; the other by making it an open centre of operations from which all the surrounding country may be subdued. Is not the last the truest safety? Jesus was never guarding Himself, but always invading the lives of others with His holiness. There never was such an open life as His; and yet the force with which His character and love flowed out upon the world kept back, more strongly than any granite wall of prudent caution could have done, the world from pressing in on Him. His life was like an open stream which keeps the sea from flowing up into it by the eager force with which it flows down into the sea. He was so anxious that the world should be saved that therein was His salvation from the world. He labored so to make the world pure that He never even had to try to be pure Himself.

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