Lloyd C. Douglas
Lloyd C. Douglas was a noteworthy American minister and author. He spent part of his boyhood in Monroeville, Indiana, Wilmot, Indiana and Florence, Kentucky, where his father, Alexander Jackson Douglas, was pastor of the Hopeful Lutheran Church. He died in Los Angeles, California.
Douglas was one of the most popular American authors of his time, although he didn't write his first novel until he was 50.
His written works were of a moral, didactic, and distinctly religious tone. His first novel, Magnificent Obsession, was an immediate and sensational success. Critics held that his type of fiction was in the tradition of the great religious writings of an earlier generation, such as, Ben-Hur and Quo Vadis.
Douglas is buried in Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.
“This faith...is not like a deed to a house in which one may live with full rights of possession. It is more like a kit of tools with which a man may build him a house. The tools will be worth just what he does with them. When he lays them down, they will have no value until he takes them up again.”
“An understanding of Jesus is not a mere matter of intelligence. He has to be accepted by faith.”
“Our life is like a land journey, too even and easy and dull over long distances across the plains, too hard and painful up the steep grades; but, on the summits of the mountain, you have a magnificent view--and feel exalted--and your eyes are full of happy tears--and you want to sing--and wish you had wings! And then--you can't stay there, but must continue your journey--you begin climbing down the other side, so busy with your footholds that your summit experience is forgotten.”
“I never thought much about flowers until I made the close acquaintance of a man who knew all about them. You would have thought that the butterflies and flowers were friends of his. 'See how richly they are clad,' he said. 'Even King Solomon did not have such raiment.”
“Her voice was unusually deep toned for a girl, he thought. Girls were always screaming what they had to say. Her throaty voice made you feel you had known her a long time.”
“This faith, is not like a deed to a house in which one may live with full rights of possession. It is more like a kit of tools with which a man may build himself a house. The tools will be worth just what he does with them. When he lays them down, they will have no value until he takes them up again.”
“A talent for truth is real property. If a man loves truth better than things, people like to be around where he is. Almost everybody wishes he could be honest, but you can’t have the spirit of truth when your heart is set on dickering for things.”
“…they pick flowers, but they do not sweep the sky!”
“Are men and beasts of the same category? Is there no essential difference between them in respect to the quality of their value?…It is an offense to the majesty of the human spirit; for if any man deserves to be regarded as of the same quality as a beast of burden, then no man has any dignity left.”