The Best of Henry Drummond Quotes

“Talent develops itself in solitude—the talent of prayer, of faith, of meditation, of seeing the unseen; character grows in the stream of the world's life. That chiefly is where men are to learn love.”
― Henry Drummond, The Best of Henry Drummond: The Greatest Thing in the World, Eternal Life, Beautiful Thoughts, Natural Law in the Spiritual World and More!

“Do not quarrel, therefore, with your lot in life. Do not complain of its never-ceasing cares, its petty environment, the vexations you have to stand, the small and sordid souls you have to live and work with. Above all, do not resent temptation; do not be perplexed because it seems to thicken round you more and more, and ceases neither for effort nor for agony nor prayer. That is your practice. That is the practice which God appoints you; and it is having its work in making you patient, and humble, and generous, and unselfish, and kind, and courteous. Do not grudge the hand that is moulding the still too shapeless image within you. It is growing more beautiful, though you see it not; and every touch of temptation may add to its perfection. Therefore keep in the midst of life. Do not isolate yourself. Be among men and among things, and among troubles, and difficulties, and obstacles. You remember Goethe's words: "Talent develops itself in solitude; character in the stream of life.”
― Henry Drummond, The Best of Henry Drummond: The Greatest Thing in the World, Eternal Life, Beautiful Thoughts, Natural Law in the Spiritual World and More!

“What makes a man a good cricketer? Practice. What makes a man a good artist, a good sculptor, a good musician? Practice. What makes a man a good linguist, a good stenographer? Practice. What makes a man a good man? Practice. Nothing else. There is nothing capricious about religion. We do not get the soul in different ways, under different laws, from those in which we get the body and the mind. If a man does not exercise his arm he develops no biceps muscle; and if a man does not exercise his soul, he acquires no muscle in his soul, no strength of character, no vigor of moral fibre, no beauty of spiritual growth. Love is not a thing of enthusiastic emotion. It is a rich, strong, manly, vigorous expression of the whole round Christian character—the Christlike nature in its fullest development. And the constituents of this great character are only to be built up by CEASELESS PRACTICE.”
― Henry Drummond, The Best of Henry Drummond: The Greatest Thing in the World, Eternal Life, Beautiful Thoughts, Natural Law in the Spiritual World and More!

“You know the meaning of the word "gentleman." It means a gentle man—a man who does things gently, with love. That is the whole art and mystery of it. The gentle man cannot in the nature of things do an ungentle, an ungentlemanly thing. The ungentle soul, the inconsiderate, unsympathetic nature, cannot do anything else. "Love doth not behave itself unseemly.”
― Henry Drummond, The Best of Henry Drummond: The Greatest Thing in the World, Eternal Life, Beautiful Thoughts, Natural Law in the Spiritual World and More!

“Humility—to put a seal upon your lips and forget what you have done. After you have been kind, after Love has stolen forth into the world and done its beautiful work, go back into the shade again and say nothing about it. Love hides even from itself. Love waives even self-satisfaction. "Love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up." Humility—love hiding. The fifth ingredient is a somewhat strange one to find in this summumbonum: Courtesy. This is Love in society, Love in relation to etiquette. "Love does not behave itself unseemly.”
― Henry Drummond, The Best of Henry Drummond: The Greatest Thing in the World, Eternal Life, Beautiful Thoughts, Natural Law in the Spiritual World and More!

“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, The Best of Henry Drummond: The Greatest Thing in the World, Eternal Life, Beautiful Thoughts, Natural Law in the Spiritual World and More!

“I lived for myself, I thought for myself, For myself, and none beside— Just as if Jesus had never lived, As if He had never died." Thank God the Christianity of today is coming nearer the world's need. Live to help that on. Thank God men know better, by a hair's breadth, what religion is, what God is, who Christ is, where Christ is. Who is Christ? He who fed the hungry, clothed the naked, visited the sick. And where is Christ? Where?—"Whoso shall receive a little child in My name receiveth Me." And who are Christ's? "Every one that loveth is born of God.”
― Henry Drummond, The Best of Henry Drummond: The Greatest Thing in the World, Eternal Life, Beautiful Thoughts, Natural Law in the Spiritual World and More!

“Politeness has been defined as love in trifles. Courtesy is said to be love in little things. And the one secret of politeness is to love.”
― Henry Drummond, The Best of Henry Drummond: The Greatest Thing in the World, Eternal Life, Beautiful Thoughts, Natural Law in the Spiritual World and More!

“It is the man who is the missionary, it is not his words. His character is his message.”
― Henry Drummond, The Best of Henry Drummond: The Greatest Thing in the World, Eternal Life, Beautiful Thoughts, Natural Law in the Spiritual World and More!

“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, The Best of Henry Drummond: The Greatest Thing in the World, Eternal Life, Beautiful Thoughts, Natural Law in the Spiritual World and More!

“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, The Best of Henry Drummond: The Greatest Thing in the World, Eternal Life, Beautiful Thoughts, Natural Law in the Spiritual World and More!

“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, The Best of Henry Drummond: The Greatest Thing in the World, Eternal Life, Beautiful Thoughts, Natural Law in the Spiritual World and More!

“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, The Best of Henry Drummond: The Greatest Thing in the World, Eternal Life, Beautiful Thoughts, Natural Law in the Spiritual World and More!

“the test of a man then is not, "How have I believed?" but "How have I loved?”
― Henry Drummond, The Best of Henry Drummond: The Greatest Thing in the World, Eternal Life, Beautiful Thoughts, Natural Law in the Spiritual World and More!

“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, The Best of Henry Drummond: The Greatest Thing in the World, Eternal Life, Beautiful Thoughts, Natural Law in the Spiritual World and More!

“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, The Best of Henry Drummond: The Greatest Thing in the World, Eternal Life, Beautiful Thoughts, Natural Law in the Spiritual World and More!

“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, The Best of Henry Drummond: The Greatest Thing in the World, Eternal Life, Beautiful Thoughts, Natural Law in the Spiritual World and More!

“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, The Best of Henry Drummond: The Greatest Thing in the World, Eternal Life, Beautiful Thoughts, Natural Law in the Spiritual World and More!

“Love envieth not." This is love in competition with others. Whenever you attempt a good work you will find other men doing the same kind of work, and probably doing it better. Envy them not. Envy is a feeling of ill-will to those who are in the same line as ourselves, a spirit of covetousness and detraction. How little Christian work even is a protection against un-Christian feeling! That most despicable of all the unworthy moods which cloud a Christian's soul assuredly waits for us on the threshold of every work, unless we are”
― Henry Drummond, The Best of Henry Drummond: The Greatest Thing in the World, Eternal Life, Beautiful Thoughts, Natural Law in the Spiritual World and More!

“There is a difference between trying to please and giving pleasure. Give pleasure. Lose no chance of giving pleasure; for that is the ceaseless and anonymous triumph of a truly loving spirit. "I shall pass through this world but once. Any good thing, therefore, that I can do, or any kindness that I can show to any human being, let me do it now. Let me not defer it or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.”
― Henry Drummond, The Best of Henry Drummond: The Greatest Thing in the World, Eternal Life, Beautiful Thoughts, Natural Law in the Spiritual World and More!

“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, The Best of Henry Drummond: The Greatest Thing in the World, Eternal Life, Beautiful Thoughts, Natural Law in the Spiritual World and More!

“Love, understood by all, will be pouring forth its unconscious eloquence.”
― Henry Drummond, The Best of Henry Drummond: The Greatest Thing in the World, Eternal Life, Beautiful Thoughts, Natural Law in the Spiritual World and More!

“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, The Best of Henry Drummond: The Greatest Thing in the World, Eternal Life, Beautiful Thoughts, Natural Law in the Spiritual World and More!

“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, The Best of Henry Drummond: The Greatest Thing in the World, Eternal Life, Beautiful Thoughts, Natural Law in the Spiritual World and More!