Henry Drummond Quotes & Sayings

You will find as you look back upon your life that the moments when you have truly lived are the moments when you have done things in the spirit of love. — Henry Drummond

and is developed by exercise. Active use of the power entrusted to us is one of the chief means which God employs for producing the Christian graces. — Henry Drummond

It is a wonderful thing that here and there in this hard, uncharitable world there should still be left a few rare souls who think no evil. This is the great unworldliness. Love "thinketh no evil," imputes no motive, sees the bright side, puts the best construction on every action. What a delightful state of mind to live in! What a stimulus and benediction even to meet with it for a day! — Henry Drummond

... something wholly new in religious thought. All other heavens have been gardens, dreamlands: passivities, more or less aimless. Even to the majority among ourselves, heaven is a siesta and not a city.
The heaven of Christianity is different from all other heavens, because the religion of Christianity is different from all other religions. Christianity is the religion of cities. It moves among real things. Its sphere is the street, the market-place, the working life of the world... Try to restore the natural force of the expression - suppose John to have lived today and to have said 'I saw a new London. — Henry Drummond

Our success in influencing or elevating others is in proportion to their belief in our belief in them. — Henry Drummond

Therefore keep in the midst of life. Do not isolate yourself. Be among men and things, and among troubles, and difficulties, and obstacles. — Henry Drummond

How often we have felt something within us impelling us to do something which we would not have conceived of by ourselves, or enabling us to do something which we could not have done alone. "It is God which worketh in you." This great simple fact — Henry Drummond

No form of vice, not worldliness, not greed of gold, not drunkenness itself, does more to un-Christianize society than evil temper. For embittering life, for breaking up communities, for destroying the most sacred relationships, for devastating homes, for withering up men and women, for taking the bloom of childhood, in short, FOR SHEER GRATUITOUS MISERY-PRODUCING POWER this influence stands alone. — Henry Drummond

Unless a man undertakes more than he possibly can do, he will never do all he can do. — Henry Drummond

I wonder why it is we are not all kinder to each other ... How much the world needs it! How easily it is done! — Henry Drummond

No man can become a saint in his sleep. — Henry Drummond

Why do we want to live for ever? Because we hope that tomorrow will bring us someone we can love. Because we want to live another day with the person we love beside us. Because we want to find someone who deserves our Love and who, in turn, will know how to love us as we deserve to be loved. That is why, when a man has no one to love him, he feels a great desire to die. As long as he has friends, people who love him and whom he loves too, he will live. Because to live is to love. — Henry Drummond

Analyze, as a study in Temper, the thunder-cloud itself as it gathers upon the Elder Brother's brow. What is it made of? Jealousy, anger, pride, uncharity, cruelty, self-righteousness, touchiness, doggedness, sullenness - these are the ingredients of this dark and loveless soul. In varying proportions, also, these are the ingredients of all ill temper. Judge if such sins of the disposition are not worse to live in, and for others to live with, than the sins of the body. Did Christ indeed not answer the question Himself when He said, "I say unto you that the publicans and the harlots go into the Kingdom of Heaven before you"? There is really no place in heaven for a disposition like this. A man with such a mood could only make heaven miserable for all the people in it. Except, therefore, such a man be BORN AGAIN, — Henry Drummond

Love, understood by all, will be pouring forth its unconscious eloquence. — Henry Drummond

Missionaries can take nothing greater to the heathen world than the impress and reflection of the Love of God upon their own character. — Henry Drummond

To love abundantly is to live abundantly, and to love forever is to live forever. — Henry Drummond

Strength of character may be learned at work, but beauty of character is learned at home. — Henry Drummond

On the last analysis, then, love is life. Love never faileth and life never faileth so long as there is love. — Henry Drummond

Christ's teaching is that there is no happiness in having and getting anything, but only in giving. I repeat, there is no happiness in having or in getting, but only in giving. Half the world is on the wrong scent in pursuit of happiness. They think it consists in having and getting, and in being served by others. It consists in giving, and in serving others. "He that would be great among you," said Christ, "let him serve." He that would be happy, let him remember that there is but one way - "it is more blessed, it is more happy, to give than to receive. — Henry Drummond

Courtesy is Love in little things. — Henry Drummond

WORK MAKES MEN. A university is not merely a place for making scholars, it is a place for making Christians. A farm is not a place for growing corn, it is a place for growing character, and a man has no character except that which is developed by his life and thought. God's Spirit does the building through the acts which a man performs from day to day. A student who cons out every word in his Latin and Greek instead of consulting a translation finds that honesty is translated into his character. If he works out his mathematical problems thoroughly, he not only becomes a mathematician, but becomes a thorough man. It is by constant and conscientious attention to daily duties that thoroughness and conscientiousness and honorableness are imbedded in our beings. Character is — Henry Drummond

Wherever we are, it is our friends that make our world. — Henry Drummond

He contrasts it with eloquence. And what a noble gift it is, the power of playing upon the souls and wills of men, and rousing them to lofty purposes and holy deeds! Paul says, "If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not love, I am become sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal." We all know why. We have all felt the brazenness of words without emotion, the hollowness, the unaccountable unpersuasiveness, of eloquence behind which lies no Love. — Henry Drummond

To become Christ-like is the only thing in the whole world worth caring for, the thing before which every ambition of man is folly and all lower achievement vain. — Henry Drummond

Hence it is not enough to deal with the Temper. We must go to the source, and change the inmost nature, and the angry humors will die away of themselves. Souls are made sweet not by taking the acid fluids out, but by putting something in - a great Love, a new Spirit, the Spirit of Christ. Christ, the Spirit of Christ, interpenetrating ours, sweetens, purifies, transforms all. This only can eradicate what is wrong, work a chemical change, renovate and regenerate, and rehabilitate the inner man. Will-power does not change men. Time does not change men. CHRIST DOES. Therefore, "Let that mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus. — Henry Drummond

Happiness ... consists in giving, and in serving others. — Henry Drummond

It is the man who is the missionary, it is not his words. His character is his message. — Henry Drummond

The peculiarity of ill temper is that it is the vice of the virtuous. — Henry Drummond

He that dwelleth in love, dwelleth in God. God is love. Therefore love. Without distinction, without calculation, without procrastination, love. Lavish it upon the poor, where it is very easy; especially upon the rich, who often need it most; most of all upon out equals, where it is very difficult, and for whom perhaps we do the least of all. — Henry Drummond

You will find, if you think for a moment, that the people who influence you are the people who believe in you. — Henry Drummond

There is no happiness in having or in getting, but only in giving. — Henry Drummond

Courtesy "Doth not behave itself unseemly." Unselfishness "Seeketh not its own." Good temper "Is not provoked." Guilelessness "Taketh not account of evil." Sincerity "Rejoiceth not in unrighteousness, but rejoiceth with the truth. — Henry Drummond

He lives who dies to win a lasting name. — Henry Drummond

The first element in a symmetrical life is work. Three-fourths of our time is probably spent in work. Of course the meaning of it is that our work should be just as religious as our worship, and unless we can work for the glory of God three-fourths of life remains unsanctified. The proof that work is religious is that most of Christ's life was spent in work. During a large part of the first thirty years of His life He worked with the hammer and the plane, making ploughs and yokes and household furniture. Christ's public ministry occupied only about two and a half years of His earthly life; the great bulk of His time was simply spent in doing common everyday tasks, and ever since then work has had a new meaning. — Henry Drummond