“Conscience in the soul is the root of all true courage. If a man would be brave, let him learn to obey his conscience.”
James Freeman Clarke (April 4, 1810 – June 8, 1888)
“Conscience in the soul is the root of all true courage. If a man would be brave, let him learn to obey his conscience.”
James Freeman Clarke (April 4, 1810 – June 8, 1888) was an American theologian and author. He was one of the very first Americans to explore and write about Eastern religions. A portrait of Clarke, painted by E.T. Billings, hangs in the Boston Public Library.
- Born in Hanover, New Hampshire, James Freeman Clarke attended the Boston Latin School, graduated from Harvard College in 1829, and Harvard Divinity School in 1833.
- Ordained into the Unitarian church he first became an active minister at Louisville, Kentucky, then a slave state, and soon threw himself into the national movement for the abolition of slavery.
- His mild t