38 quotes
Men who have sacrificed their well-being, and even their lives, for the cause of truth or the public good, are, from an empirical point of view (which scorns virtue and altruism) regarded as insane or as fools; but, from a moral standpoint, they are heroes who honour humanity.
Words of a Sage: Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937)
Injustice having always been predominant on earth, there are some who imagine that this existing social order will continue forever. That this order was able to last until now, has mainly been due to the conviction of people that it was of divine institution.
Words of a Sage: Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937)
The virtue preached by devout persons is the virtue of the slave who always believes themselves under the eye of the master. However, Jésus said: 'Serve God not as slaves, but as sons in the house'
Words of a Sage: Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937)
By devoting ourselves too exclusively to the pursuit of material happiness and ephemeral goods, we ignore the true realities of life and allow our spirit to wither and dry up.
Words of a Sage: Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937)
The feeling of solidarity that is born amidst a community rests on the feeling of antagonism against those who are opposed to it. Most of the time we only adhere to a party or a group, in order to better differentiate ourselves from another.
Words of a Sage: Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937)
If the abandonment of religious and moral principles was to become widespread, the consequences could be become such that we would finally see crop up in the very heart of civilisation, a new and apalling barbarism capable of engulfing all the acquisitions of the past.
Words of a Sage: Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937)
If we accomplish a good deed, a charity in the hope of future rewards, or with a more or less admitted ulterior motive to profit from personal advantages, we are probably doing a useful thing, but which is devoid of any truly moral character.
Words of a Sage: Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937)
It is from our lack of proper content, from our inner emptiness, that we need occupations and distractions. Otherwise we experience boredom, which is nothing else than the feeling of unease that takes hold of us when our spirit is not absorbed in the mirages of life.
Words of a Sage: Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937)
Morality, to be effective, has to be well-reasoned. To want to repress evil only by coercion, and to obtain morality by a kind of education using constraint, without motivating it from within, is to make an artificial thing, devoid of lasting value.
Words of a Sage: Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937)
If we possessed a more developed moral sense, we'd be as disgusted by the rapacity of those who seek to profit and take without regard for others, as we are by a foul smell.
Words of a Sage: Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937)
If pity was always equally alive and acting in all individuals and in all circumstances, we could do away with morality. Unfortunately, it is not compassion, but rather it's opposite - selfishness - that acts most strongly in us.
Words of a Sage: Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937)
The more gifted by nature is a man, the more is deplorable the abuse that he does by using them to shameful ends. A swindler or crook of higher condition is more blameworthy than a vulgar scoundrel; an intelligent evil-doer, having benefited from a higher education, represents a more saddening phenomenon than an unfortunate illiterate fellow having committed an offence.
Words of a Sage: Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937)
What is missing to our civilisation is the soul, the spiritual unity, the basis. That is why everything in it is pretence and contrivance; and why also, in spite of the progress and marvellous improvement they have accomplished in the external realm, men have, in general, become themselves neither better nor happier. They have neglected too much the essential; their own perfecting.
Words of a Sage: Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937)
If at a banquet someone were to rip the morsels from the mouths of the guests, we would be unanimous in finding their behaviour to be iniquitous and brutal, but when the same is done in a less conspicuous way, people are hardly offended.
Words of a Sage: Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937)
Deep down, everything comes down to the following simple question: Do we really want justice and the realization in this world of higher principles? Or else do we want to serve selfish, short-sighted interests, which, when all is said and done, are also detrimental to those very same people that pursue them?
Words of a Sage: Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937)
In life we only try to produce, to win, and enjoy the more we can; in science, to discover and invent the more we can; in religion, to dominate on the greatest number of people we can; whereas the forming of the character, the further development of the faculties of the intelligence, the refinement of the consciousness and of the heart, are considered incidental things.
Words of a Sage: Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937)
Education has a tremendous power on man. Can't we see to which the astonishing discipline the people of Sparta have submitted for centuries? And this with a view to very petty purposes: purely outer greatness, the military predominace of Sparta. This example proves that men can do most anything they want; therefore it would only be a question of making them will the good.
Words of a Sage: Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937)
To succeed in brilliant businesses, to achieve great success, that is what the ambition and efforts of the majority of men aim for. But at the end of the day what do they get for it? Softer cushions, better meat, maybe decorations or medals - that is all. And to think that there are found serious men who consume their whole existence in the pursuit and the expectation of these trivialities.
Words of a Sage: Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937)