61 quotes
We admire and revere the soul which can ride its own passions and force them into obedience to the dictates of reason.
Life and Destiny: or Thoughts from the Ethical Lectures of Felix Adler (1913)
The moral law is the expression of our inmost nature, and when we live in consonance with it we feel that we are living out our true being.
Life and Destiny (1913)
We live in order to develop the superior qualities of man which are, as yet, for the most part latent.
Life and Destiny (1913)
The condition of all progress is experience. We go wrong a thousand times before we find the right path.
Life and Destiny (1913)
There may be, and there ought to be, progress in the moral sphere. The moral truths which we have inherited from the past need to be expanded and restated.
Life and Destiny (1913)
The question what to believe is perhaps the most momentous that anyone can put to himself. Our beliefs are not to be classed among the luxuries, but among the necessaries of existence.
Life and Destiny (1913)
It may be impossible for a man by merely willing it to add wings to his body, but it is possible for any man, by merely willing it, to add wings to his soul. This perennial miracle of the moral nature is capable of happening at any time.
Life and Destiny (1913)
Throw yourself into the stream of the world's good tendency and you will feel the force of the current and the direction in which it is setting.
Life and Destiny (1913)
There is a difficulty in the way of teaching the higher life, due to the fact that only those who have begun to lead it can understand the meaning of it.
Life and Destiny (1913)
Let us learn from the lips of death the lessons of life. Let us live truly while we live, live for what is true and good and lasting.
Life and Destiny (1913)
The Infinite, from which comes the impulse that lead us to activity, is not the highest Reason, but higher than reason; not the highest Goodness, but higher than goodness.
Life and Destiny (1913)
The ethical element of religion has ever been its truly vital and quickening force.
Life and Destiny (1913)
The consolations of the moral ideal are vigorous. They do not encourage idle sentiment. They recommend to the sufferer action.
Life and Destiny (1913)
Ethical religion can be real only to those who are engaged in ceaseless efforts at moral improvement. By moving upward we acquire faith in an upward movement, without limit.
Life and Destiny (1913)
Where the roots of private virtue are diseased, the fruit of public probity cannot but be corrupt.
Founding Address (1876)
The moral order never is, but is ever becoming. It grows with our growth.
Life and Destiny (1913)
We have already transgressed the limit of safety, and the present disorders of our time are but precursors of other and imminent dangers.
Founding Address (1876)
The frontier of the higher life is everywhere contiguous to the common life, and we can cross the border at any moment. The higher life is as real as the grosser things in which we put our trust. But our eyes must be anointed so that we may see it.
Life and Destiny (1913)
The world is dark around us and the prospect seems deepening in gloom. and yet there is light ahead.
Founding Address (1876)
In order to join vigorously in the moral work of the world I must believe that somehow the best I can accomplish will endure, will leave its trace on things, will aid the final consummation.
Life and Destiny (1913)