77 quotes
To attack the citadels built up on all sides against the human race by superstitions, despotisms, and prejudices, the Force must have a brain and a law. Then its deeds of daring produce permanent results, and there is real progress.
Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry (1871)
The obligation of the candidate is always to be taken on the sacred book or books of his religion, that he may deem it more solemn and binding; and therefore it was that you were asked of what religion you were. We have no other concern with your religious creed.
Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry (1871)
For it is true now, as it always was and always will be, that to be free is the same thing as to be pious, to be wise, to be temperate and just, to be frugal and abstinent, and to be magnanimous and brave; and to be the opposite of all these is the same as to be a slave.
Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry (1871)
The Apocalypse is … the Apotheosis of that Sublime Faith which aspires to God alone, and despises all the pomps and works of Lucifer.
Force, unregulated or ill-regulated, is not only wasted in the void, like that of gunpowder burned in the open air, and steam unconfined by science; but, striking in the dark, and its blows meeting only the air, they recoil, and bruise itself.
Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry (1871)
Justice to others and to ourselves is the same; that we cannot define our duties by mathematical lines ruled by the square, but must fill with them the great circle traced by the compasses
Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry (1871)
Justice in no wise consists in meting out to another that exact measure of reward or punishment which we think and decree his merit, or what we call his crime, which is more often merely his error, deserves.
Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry (1871)
We live our little life; but Heaven is above us and all around and close to us; and Eternity is before us and behind us; and suns and stars are silent witnesses and watchers over us. We are enfolded by Infinity.
Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry (1871)
All that is done and said and thought and suffered upon the Earth combine together, and flow onward in one broad resistless current toward those great results to which they are determined by the will of God.
Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry (1871)
Always, also, it remains true, that it is more noble to forgive than to take revenge; and that, in general, we ought too much to despise those who wrong us, to feel the emotion of anger, or to desire revenge.
Duty is with us ever; and evermore forbids us to be idle. To work with the hands or brain, according to our acquirements and our capacities, to do that which lies before us to do, is more honorable than rank and title.
Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry (1871)
The power of a free people is often at the disposal of a single and seemingly an unimportant individual; — a terrible and truthful power; for such a people feel with one heart, and therefore can lift up their myriad arms for a single blow. And, again, there is no graduated scale for the measurement of the influences of different intellects upon the popular mind. Peter the Hermit held no office, yet what a work he wrought!
Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry (1871)
To sow, that others may reap; to work and plant for those that are to occupy the earth when we are dead; to project our influences far into the future, and live beyond our time; to rule as the Kings of Thought, over men who are yet unborn; to bless with the glorious gifts of Truth and Light and Liberty those who will neither know the name of the giver, nor care in what grave his unregarded ashes repose, is the true office of a Mason and the proudest destiny of a man.
Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry (1871)
War is a series of catastrophes which result in victory.
Misattributed
One man is equivalent to all Creation. One man is a World in miniature.
Misattributed
We have all the light we need, we just need to put it in practice.
Misattributed
A man should live with his superiors as he does with his fire: not too near, lest he burn; nor too far off, lest he freeze.
Misattributed