Edwin Hubbell Chapin

Consider, then, and act upon the true ends of existence. This world which stretches out before you, is but the vestibule of an immortal life. These deeds that are taking place around you, touch upon chords that extend by a thousand connections, visible and invisible, and vibrate in eternity.
- Duties of Young Men (Boston: Phillips, Sampson and Company, 1853), p. 160.

Humanity in the City. New York: De Witt & Davenport, 1854

Each man … finds life to be a discipline. Each has his separate form of discipline; but it bears upon the kindred spirit that is in every one of us, and strikes upon motives, sympathies, faculties, that run through the common humanity. Surely, you will not calculate any essential difference from mere appearances; for the light laughter that bubbles on the lip often mantles over brackish depths of sadness, and the serious look may be the sober veil that covers a divine peace. You know that the bosom can ache beneath diamond brooches, and how many blithe hearts dance under coarse wool.
- p. 25.

[A] true man … never frets about his place in the world; but just slides into it by the gravitation of his nature, and swings there as easily as a star!
- p. 79.

There is no happiness in life, there is no misery, like that growing out of the dispositions which consecrate or desecrate a Home.
- p. 140.

Living Words. Boston: A. Tompkins, 1860

Life is a crucible. We are thrown into it, and tried. The actual weight and value of a man are expressed in the spiritual substance of the man. All else is dross.
- p. 26.

An aged Christian, with the snow of time on his head, may remind us that those points of earth are whitest that are nearest heaven.
- p. 26.

Objects close to the eye shut out much larger objects on the horizon; and splendors born only of the earth eclipse the stars. So a man sometimes covers up the entire disk of eternity with a dollar, and quenches transcendent glories with a little shining dust.
- p. 45.

[N]ever does the human soul appear so strong as when it foregoes revenge and dares to forgive an injury.
- p. 61.

Goodness consists not in the outward things we do, but in the inward thing we are. To be is the great thing.
- p. 102.

Through all God's works there runs a beautiful harmony. The remotest truth in his universe is linked to that which lies nearest the throne.
- p. 117.

At the bottom of a good deal of the bravery that appears in the world there lurks a miserable cowardice. Men will face powder and steel because they cannot face public opinion.
- p. 124.

I know a good many people, I think, who are bigots, and who know they are bigots, and are sorry for it, but they dare not be anything else.
- p. 125.

A great many men — some comparatively small men now — if put in the right position, would be Luthers and Columbuses.
- p. 165.

Fashion is the science of appearances, and it inspires one with the desire to seem rather than to be.
- p. 167.

Poetry is the utterance of truth — deep, heartfelt truth. The true poet is very near the oracle.
- p. 177.

Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seamed with scars; martyrs have put on their coronation-robes glittering with fire; and through their tears have the sorrowful first seen the gate of heaven.
- p. 185.

Christ saw much in this world to weep over, and much to pray over; but he saw nothing in it to look upon with contempt.
- p. 190.

There is no tariff so injurious as that with which sectarian bigotry guards its commodities. It dwarfs the soul by shutting out truths from other continents of thought, and checks the circulation of its own.
- p. 231.

[Christ] illustrates the purport of life as he descends from his transfiguration to toil, and goes forward to exchange that robe of heavenly brightness for the crown of thorns.
- p. 281.

[U]nder the shadow of earthly disappointment, all unconsciously to ourselves, our Divine Redeemer is walking by our side.
- p. 302.

Pride is the master-sin of the devil; and the devil is the father of lies.
- p. 312.

Most men are less afraid of ghosts than of facts; but out of the truth of things — truth of character and vision — grows true life.
- p. 356.

Quotes