Felix Adler

“ And the result of progress is just this, that it makes us more and more able to define the outlines of that shape, to draw sharply and finely the noble lineaments of that face; that it makes us more and more able to see the divine, the perfect man, the only begotten son of all the spirits of the myriads of the generations of men—the man that is to be, the perfection of our imperfection.
The perfect man has never yet appeared on earth. The perfect man is an apparition of light and beauty rising in the boundless infinite, an ideal to be more and more clothed with particularity. ”

“ If you ask a horseman who has just returned from an exhilarating ride what compensation he expects to receive for the exercise he has taken, he will probably look at you in blank amazement, with grave misgivings as to your sanity. If you ask a scientist what reward he expects to receive for the pursuit of knowledge, he will answer you, if he is an expert in the use of his intellect, that he expects no ulterior reward of any kind; that not positive knowledge so much as the sense of growth in the attainment of knowledge is the highest reward which he can imagine. ”

“ We have named the form of religion an image of the Ideal, yet an image poor and incomplete at best, rather a symbol, a suggestion of what can never be realized. In the realm of art we do not find the soul of beauty in the colored canvas or the marble statue; these are helpful hieroglyphics only, teaching those that can read their mute language to create anew the ideal as it lived in the artist's soul, in the divine hour of conception. Thus all form has its value only in what it suggests. Our Ideal is that of the fellowship of humanity in highest wisdom, highest truth and highest love. ”

“ When we compare the degrading offices of the Hebrew religion in the days of the judges with the lofty aspirations of the second Isaiah, when we remember the utter abyss of moral abasement from which the nobler spirits of the Hebrews rose to the free summits of prophecy, our confidence in the divine possibilities of the human soul is reinvigorated, our emulation is kindled, and from the great things already accomplished we gather the cheering promise of the greater things that are yet to come. It is in this moral incentive that the practical value of the evolutionary theory chiefly lies. ”

“ What should be his attitude of mind in that supreme moment. The forces of nature are about to overwhelm him. What motive can there be strong enough to support bravery in that moment? The rule of duty for him would be: Be brave, because as a human being you are superior to the forces of nature, because there is something in you—your moral self—over which the forces of nature have no power, because what happens to you in your private character is not important, but it is important that you assert the dignity of humanity to the last breath. ”

“ But the peace that passeth understanding is that which comes when the pain is not relieved, which subsists in the midst of the painful situation, suffusing it, which springs out of the pain itself, which shimmers on the crest of the wave of pain, which is the spear of frustration transfigured into the shaft of light.
It is upon those we love that we must anchor ourselves spiritually in the last moments. The sense of interconnectedness with them stands out vividly by way of contrast at the very moment when our mortal connection with them is about to be dissolved. ”

“ Vile deeds are vile, no matter whether we know or do not know what, after death, will be the fate of the doer. We know, at least, what his fate is now, namely, to be wedded to the vileness.
The question for any one to decide, who hesitates between good and evil, is whether he aspires to be a full-weight man, or merely the fragment, nay, the counterfeit of a man. Only he who ceaselessly aims at moral completeness is, in the true sense, a human being.
There is a universal element in man which he can assert by so acting as if the purpose of the Universe were also his purpose. ”

“ Hate is evil at all times, for hate implies the isolation and the weakness of the powers of reason. We should reward hatred with love and restore the broken accord of intellect. Love is the sense of kinship in the common search for reason's goal—wisdom. That all men should so live and act together that they may form, as it were, one body and one mind, is the ideal of life. Friendship therefore he prizes as the dearest of earth's possessions, and wedlock he esteems holy because in it is cemented the union of two souls for the common search of truth. ”

“ Is it not a little astonishing that this fable should so often be related to children as if it contained a moral which they ought to take to heart? To make it apply at all, it is usually twisted from its proper signification and explained as meaning that one should not be fool-hardy, not attempt to struggle against overwhelming odds. But this is not the true interpretation. The oak is by nature strong and firm, while it is the nature of the reed to bend to every wind. The fable springs out of the experience of a people who have found resistance against oppression useless. ”