Daily Inspiration Quote by Harry Emerson Fosdick

A preacher’s consolation can also be a quiet reshaping of ambition. Fosdick’s line lowers the temperature on “greatness” without pretending people don’t crave it. He grants the hard limit first: most lives won’t be stamped with exceptional achievement. Then he offers a substitute that still preserves dignity and purpose: affiliation. If you can’t be the hero, you can still stand close to the cause.

The intent is pastoral, aimed at ordinary listeners in a modern mass society where comparison is relentless and public acclaim is scarce. Fosdick preached in the early 20th century, when industrial scale, big institutions, and celebrity were rewriting what “success” looked like. The sentence meets that cultural pressure with a gentler metric: significance through participation rather than spotlight.

The subtext is both empowering and mildly disciplining. “Attach ourselves” is not “invent ourselves.” It suggests humility, service, even a kind of spiritual ecology: your life draws meaning by rooting into something larger - faith, community, reform, justice. It nudges ego away from private triumph and toward collective projects, a very Social Gospel move from a clergyman who believed religion should shape public life.

There’s also a sly theological realism in the phrasing. Fosdick doesn’t deny the hierarchy of talent and circumstance; he redirects agency to the one place nearly everyone still has it: choosing allegiance. Greatness becomes less a personal brand than a moral direction, a decision to lend your limited time and strength to what deserves it.