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<\/a><\/p>\nWhat follows here is a selection of quotes of (mostly) Unitarian writers I found in that book that I thought echoed our contemporary liberal faith. Or should\u2026<\/p>\n
John Adams, not a Unitarian but a religious liberal and the father of John Quincy who was a Unitarian, and who wrote the oldest constitution still in effect (God bless you, Mr President) for the oldest democratic government in existence (the good Commonwealth of Massachusetts) wrote how we (he did say men, but knowing his wife, we know he really did mean all of us) \u201care born free and equal, and have certain natural, essential, unalienable rights.\u201d Echoes nicely his friend and competitor Tom\u2019s work, don\u2019t ya think?<\/p>\n
His wife, Abigail Adams, another religious liberal who raised a Unitarian son observed \u201cMany of our disappointments and much of our unhappiness arise from our forming false notions of things and persons.\u201d<\/p>\n
John Quincy Adams called us to \u201cThink of your forefathers. Think of your posterity.\u201d<\/p>\n
Susan B. Anthony called us to \u201cDistrust people who know too much about what God wants them to do to their fellows.\u201d<\/p>\n
The wise Henry David Thoreau (may blessings rest upon his name) observed \u201cThe man is richest whose pleasures are cheapest.\u201d Also, a core statement of the authentic spiritual life, \u201cSee the miraculous in the commonplace.\u201d And like onto it, \u201cOur life is frittered away by detail\u2026 Simplify, simplify.\u201d<\/p>\n
To which there\u2019s an anonymous New England saying \u201cDon\u2019t talk unless you can improve the silence.\u201d Harsh words for a preacher to hear, but\u2026<\/p>\n
Henry\u2019s friend and supporter Ralph Waldo Emerson sagely observed \u201cMoney often costs too much.\u201d He also is cited as observing \u201cThe essence of greatness is the perception that virtue is enough.\u201d And related to that \u201cAs a man thinketh so is he, and as a man chooseth, so is he.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dorothea Dix counseled us to \u201clive each day as it comes and do not borrow trouble from tomorrow. It is the dark menace of the future that makes cowards of us all.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nathaniel Hawthorne who personally didn\u2019t attend church, but who was married to a Unitarian and some would say that\u2019s pretty much the same thing, observed how \u201cHappiness is a butterfly, which when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which if you sit down quietly, may alight upon you.\u201d<\/p>\n
And, to conclude, Harriet Martineau, sister of the renowned English Unitarian theologian and famous visitor to Transcendentalist Boston observed rather dryly, \u201cI believe no one attempts to praise the climate of New England.\u201d One can\u2019t have everything in this life\u2026<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While rummaging around in the twenty-odd boxes of books I have stored up in our attic, I found a little book I have no idea when I purchased, but probably after I learned we would be moving to the Boston area. It\u2019s called The Book of New England Wisdom compiled and edited by Criswell Freeman. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":120,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1979","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n