Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by Dale Turner (American Congregational Priest)

The Reverend Dale Turner (1917–2006) was an American priest, columnist, and epigrammist. He was the longtime pastor at Seattle’s University Congregational United Church of Christ and a newspaper columnist.

Born in Glen Dale, West Virginia, Turner was raised in Akron, Ohio. Inspired to fundamentalist Christianity by a traveling evangelist, Turner entered the ministry after graduating from West Virginia Wesleyan College and Yale Divinity School. Inspired by his mentor, the Rev. Harry Emerson Fosdick, Turner adopted a more liberal theology.

After working in Congregational communities in Lansing, Michigan, Grand Rapids, Michigan, and Lawrence, Kansas, Turner served as pastor at Seattle’s University Congregational United Church of Christ 1958–82, preaching to crowds of 2,200 (which is large for the mostly secular city of Seattle.) He wrote a weekly religion column for The Seattle Times 1994–2005.

Turner published four books, Grateful Living (1998,) Different Seasons: Twelve Months of Wisdom and Inspiration (1998,) Another Way: Open-Minded Faithfulness (2001,) and Free To Be (2002.)

READ: Works by Dale Turner

Dreams are renewable. No matter what our age or condition, there are still untapped possibilities within us and new beauty waiting to be born.
Dale Turner
Topics: Dreams

Today the real test of America’s power and wisdom is not our capacity to make war but our capacity to prevent it. Prevention must be our overriding objective. It can be done. Surrendering to the inevitability of combat only paves the way for its occurring.
Dale Turner
Topics: Peace

It is the highest form of self-respect to admit our errors and mistakes and make amends for them. To make a mistake is only an error in judgment, but to adhere to it when it is discovered shows infirmity of character.
Dale Turner
Topics: Mistakes, Self-respect, Respect, Self Respect, Being True to Yourself

Why is it that, as we grow older, we are so reluctant to change? It is not so much that new ideas are painful, for they are not. It is that old ideas are seldom entirely false, but have truth, great truth in them. The justification for conservatism is the desire to preserve the truths and standards of the past; its dangers, of which we are seldom aware, is that in preserving those values, we may miss the infinitely greater riches that lie in the future.
Dale Turner
Topics: Aging, Change

It is important to live each day with a positive perspective. It is not wise to pretend problems do not exist, but it is wise to look beyond the problem to the possibilities that are in it. When Goliath came against the Israelites, the soldiers all thought, “He’s so big, we can never kill him.” But David looked at the same giant and thought, “He’s so big, I can’t miss him.”
Dale Turner
Topics: Possibilities

The greatest of all faults is to be conscious of none. Recognizing our limitations and imperfections is the first requisite of progress. Those who believe they have “arrived” believe they have nowhere to go. Some not only have closed their minds to new truth, but they sit on the lid.
Dale Turner
Topics: Realism, Truth

It is the highest form of self-respect to admit our errors and mistakes and make amends for them. To make a mistake is only an error in judgment, but to adhere to it when it is discovered shows infirmity of character.
Dale Turner
Topics: Self-respect, Respect, Self Respect, Mistakes, Being True to Yourself

The happiness of too many days is often destroyed by trying to accomplish too much in one day. We would do well to follow a common rule for our daily lives – DO LESS, AND DO IT BETTER.
Dale Turner
Topics: Happiness

In all the work we do, our most valuable asset can be the attitude of self-examination. It is forgivable to make mistakes, but to stand fast behind a wall of self-righteousness and make the same mistake twice is not forgivable.
Dale Turner
Topics: Attitude, Mistakes

God does not judge us by the multitude of works we perform, but how well we do the work that is ours to do. The happiness of too many days is often destroyed by trying to accomplish too much in one day. We would do well to follow a common rule for our daily lives—DO LESS, AND DO IT BETTER
Dale Turner
Topics: Doing Your Best

People who make no mistakes lack boldness and the spirit of adventure. They are the brakes on the wheels of progress.
Dale Turner
Topics: Adventure, Mistakes, Boldness

Some of the best lessons we ever learn are learned from past mistakes. The error of the past is the wisdom and success of the future.
Dale Turner
Topics: Mistakes, Mistake, Wisdom, The Past, Past

Because everything we say and do is the length and shadow of our own souls, our influence is determined by the quality of our being.
Dale Turner
Topics: Character

The test is to recognize the mistake, admit it and correct it. To have tried to do something and failed is vastly better than to have tried to do nothing and succeeded.
Dale Turner
Topics: Failure

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