Words that outlived
the people who said them

“In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.”

“Whenever you are in doubt, or when the self becomes too much with you, apply the following test: Recall the face of the poorest and the weakest man (woman) whom you may have seen, and ask yourself, if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him. Will he gain anything by it? Will it restore him to a control over his own life and destiny?”

“I cannot let a scriptural text supersede my reason. Whilst I believe that the principal books are inspired, they suffer from a process of double distillation. Firstly, they come through a human prophet, and then through the commentaries of interpreters. Nothing in them comes from God directly.”

“There is an indefinable mysterious power that pervades everything, I feel it though I do not see it. Whilst everything around me is ever changing, ever dying there is underlying all that change a living power that is changeless, that holds all together, that creates, dissolves and recreates. In the midst of death life persists, in the midst of untruth truth persists, in the midst of darkness light persists.”

“Rights that do not flow from duty well performed are not worth having.”

“Prayer is not asking. It is a longing of the soul.”