10 quotes
The moral improvement of the nations and their individual components has not kept pace with the march of intellect and the advance of industry.
Founding Address (1876)
The freedom of thought is a sacred right of every individual man, and diversity will continue to increase with the progress, refinement, and differentiation of the human intellect.
Founding Address (1876)
Where the roots of private virtue are diseased, the fruit of public probity cannot but be corrupt.
Founding Address (1876)
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 world is dark around us and the prospect seems deepening in gloom. and yet there is light ahead.
Founding Address (1876)
The very names that ought to be held up as luminaries of honor have become bywords of villainy, and the foul stench of corruption fills our public offices.
Founding Address (1876)
There is no difference in the law. But so long have they quarreled concerning the origin of law that the law itself has fallen more and more into abeyance.
Founding Address (1876)
There is a great and crying evil in modern society. It is want of purpose. It is that narrowness of vision which shuts out the wider vistas of the soul. It is the absence of those sublime emotions which, wherever they arise, do not fall to exalt and consecrate existence.
Founding Address (1876)
The exercises of our meeting are to be simple and devoid of all ceremonial and formalism. They are to consist of a lecture mainly, and, as a pleasing and grateful auxiliary, of music to elevate the heart and give rest to the feelings.
Founding Address (1876)
We are aiding in laying the foundations of a mighty edifice, whose completion shall not be seen in our day, no, nor in centuries upon centuries after us. But happy are we, indeed, if we can contribute even the least towards so high a consummation. The time calls for action.
Founding Address (1876)