Pithy quotes from Thomas DeWitt Talmage

(1832 – 1902)

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I like the Bible in calfskin, or morocco. But I like it better when, in the shape of a man, it goes out into the world — an illustrated Bible!

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God puts his ear so closely down to your lips — that he can hear your faintest whisper.

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I wish that I could marshal all the young to an appreciation of the fact that you have an earnest work to do in life — and that your amusements and recreations are only to help you along in that work.

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Take not into your ear that scum of Hell, that people call tittle-tattle. Whoever willingly listens to a slander, is equally guilty with the one who tells it; and an old writer says — they ought both to be hanged; the one by the tongue and the other by the ear. Do not smile upon such a spaniel, lest like a pleased dog, he puts his dirty paw upon you.

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If your path had been smooth, you would have depended upon your own sure-footedness — but God roughened the path, so you have to take hold of His hand. If the weather had been mild, you would have loitered along the watercourses, but at the first howl of the storm you quickened your pace heavenward and wrapped around you the warm robe of Savior's righteousness.

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A mother is a bank where I deposit all my worries and hurts!

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I move for a creed for all our denominations made out of Scripture quotations, pure and simple. That would be impregnable against infidelity and Apollyonic assault. That would be beyond human criticism.

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Despondency is the most unprofitable feeling a man can indulge in.

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You can measure a man's progress in religion, by the amount of earnest  prayer that he puts up to God. There is no exception to the rule. Show me a man who prays — and his strength and his power cannot by exaggerated. Just give to a man this power of prayer — and you give him almost omnipotence!

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Social dissipation is the abettor of pride, the instigator of jealousy, the sacrificial altar of health, and the defiler of the soul. It is the avenue of lust and it is the curse of every town in America.

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The grace of God is abundant. It is for all lands, for all ages, for all conditions. It seems to undergird everything.
Pardon for the worst sin,
comfort for the sharpest suffering,
brightest light for the thickest darkness.