Howard Thurman
African-American author, philosopher, theologian, and civil rights leader, one of the most influential Black contemplatives of the twentieth century and a foundational figure in the spiritual lineage of the American civil rights movement. Born in 1899 in Daytona, Florida, the grandson of an enslaved woman, he became the first Black dean of chapel at a major American university (Boston University) and in 1944 co-founded the Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples in San Francisco — one of the first intentionally interracial, intentionally interfaith congregations in the United States. His 1949 book Jesus and the Disinherited articulated a contemplative Christianity from the perspective of the oppressed; Martin Luther King Jr. is said to have carried it with him on the bus boycotts. He died in 1981 in San Francisco, leaving a body of work — Meditations of the Heart, The Inward Journey, With Head and Heart — that remains a touchstone for contemplative Black liberation theology and ecumenical mysticism.
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Quotes by Howard Thurman
104 quotes“To meditate is to listen for the sound of the genuine.”
“It is the genuine in you that knows when to speak, when to wait, when to act.”
“In spring, the soul is born again.”
“There is something deep in every soul that survives every circumstance.”
“You cannot lose what is essentially yours.”
“The work of the contemplative is to listen for the sound of the genuine in others, even those we cannot like.”
“In the long arc of justice, love is the only currency that does not lose value.”
“Take time to be still. The genuine speaks in stillness.”
“There is a freedom that no one can give to you and no one can take from you.”
“To stand in the presence of holiness is to know one's place.”
“Hope is the heart's anchor in the storm.”
“Pray as if everything depends on God; act as if everything depends on you.”
“To know God is to know oneself in God.”
“Where there is no vision, the people perish — but vision begins in the heart.”
“The inner journey requires solitude.”
“Solitude is not isolation. Solitude is the cultivation of the soul.”
“Forgiveness is the heart's only liberation.”
“To be reconciled with one's enemy is the highest spiritual achievement.”
“Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”
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