In the best sense of the word [Jesus] was a radical.… His religion has so long been identified with conservatism—often with conservatism of the obstinate and unyielding sort—that it is almost startling for us sometimes to remember that all the conservatism of His own times was against Him, that it was the young, free, restless, sanguine, progressive part of the people who flocked to Him.

About Phillips Brooks

Phillips Brooks (December 13, 1835 – January 23, 1893) was an American Episcopal clergyman and author, long the rector of Boston's Trinity Church and briefly Bishop of Massachusetts. One of the most popular preachers of the Gilded Age, he worked to make the Christian Church more relevant to contemporaries. Among...

More quotations from Phillips Brooks

Happiness is the natural flower of duty.

—Phillips Brooks

Be patient and understanding. Life is too short to be vengeful or malicious.

—Phillips Brooks

Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men. Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers. Pray for powers equal to your tasks. Then the doing of your work shall be no miracle, but you shall be the miracle.

—Phillips Brooks

prayer

History

27 Feb 2016 Added
26 Oct 2026 Wording changed

Previous wording

In the best sense of the word [Jesus] was a radical. . . . His religion has so long been identified with conservatism — often with conservatism of the obstinate and unyielding sort — that it is almost startling for us sometimes to remember that all the conservatism of His own times was against Him, that it was the young, free, restless, sanguine, progressive part of the people who flocked to Him.