Even the smallest discontent of conscience may render turbid the whole temper of the mind; but only produce the effort that restores its peace, and over the whole atmosphere a breath of unexpected purity is spread; doubt and irritability pass as clouds away; the withered sympathies of earth and home open their leaves and live; and through the clearest blue the deep is seen of the heaven where God resides.
James Martineau (Unitarian, minister, theologian)
We should count time by heart throbs.
James Martineau (Unitarian, minister, theologian)
Nothing proves more awkward than ill-advised familiarity
James Martineau (Unitarian, minister, theologian)
Worship is the free offering of ourselves to God; ever renewed, because ever imperfect…This twofold aspect devotion must ever have: pale with weeping, flushed with joy; deploring the past, trusting for the future; ashamed of what it is, kindled by what is meant to be; shadow behind, and light before
James Martineau, The Tangent of Eternity: Meditations from the Sermons & Prayers of James Martineau, 1805-1900, A Lenten Manual for 1951. Beacon Press. (Unitarian, minister)
We do not believe immortality because we have proved it, but we forever try to prove it because we believe it.
James Martineau (Unitarian, minister, theologian)
We are each of us responsible for the evil we might have prevented.
James Martineau
In every earnest life, there are weary flats to tread, with the heavens out of sight, — no sun, no moon, — and not a tint of light upon the path below; when the only guidance is the faith of brighter hours…Those intermittent movements are the sign of Divine gifts, not of human weakness. God has so arranged the chronometry of our spirits that there shall be thousands of silent moments between the striking hours
James Martineau (Unitarian, minister)
All belief and speech respecting God is untrue yet infinitely truer than any non-belief or silence. The confession of ignorance once made, we may proceed to use such poor thought and language as we find least unsuitable to so high a matter
James Martineau (Unitarian, minister)
There can be no meaner mistake than to suppose that each one’s duty remains just what it would be in a world where all performed their part…
James Martineau, Faith and Self-Surrender (1897): 119 (Unitarian, minister, reformer)
Nothing that is worthy of a living man can be unworthy in a dying one; and whatever is shocking in the last moment would be disgraceful in every other.
James Martineau (Unitarian, minister, theologian, reformer)
