14 quotes
We who have been born into a settled state of things can hardly realise the commotion out of which this tranquillity has emerged.
New Fragments (1892)
Discussion, therefore, is one of the motive powers of life, and, as such, is not to be deprecated.
New Fragments (1892)
History is the record of a vast experimental investigation—of a search by man after the best conditions of existence.
New Fragments (1892)
Almost every faith can point to its rejoicing martyrs.
New Fragments (1892)
With terrible jolts and oscillations the religious life of the world has run down 'the ringing grooves of change.' A smoother route may have been undiscoverable. At all events it was undiscovered.
New Fragments (1892)
The Christian world seethed not only with apocryphal writings, but with hostile interpretations of writings not apocryphal.
New Fragments (1892)
Science, which is the logic of nature, demands proportion between the house and its foundation. Theology sometimes builds weighty structures on a doubtful base.
New Fragments (1892)
Christ found the religions of the world oppressed almost to suffocation by the load of formulas piled upon them by the priesthood. He removed the load, and rendered respiration free.
New Fragments (1892)
The strength of faith is... no proof of the objective truth of faith.
New Fragments (1892)
The Apocrypha... ought to be bound up with all your Bibles; it contains much that is beautiful and wise, and there is in history nothing finer than the description of Eleazar's end.
New Fragments (1892)
[W]aste in intellect may be as much an incident of growth as waste in nature.
New Fragments (1892)
The yoke of religion has not always been easy, nor its burden light—a result arising, in part from the ignorance of the world at large, but more especially from the mistakes of those who had the charge and guidance of a great spiritual force, and who guided it blindly.
New Fragments (1892)
[K]nowledge and progress are the fruits of action.
New Fragments (1892)
We ought not to judge superior men without reference to the spirit of their age. This is an influence from which they cannot escape, and so far as it extenuates their errors it ought to be pleaded in their favour.
New Fragments (1892)