Felix Adler

“The ethical manifold, conceived of as unified, furnishes, or rather is, the ideal of the whole.”

“You do not build your own houses, nor make your own garments, nor bake your own bread, simply because you know that if you were to attempt all these things they would all be more or less ill done.”

“Admitting the force of these contentions, nevertheless, the custom of meeting together in public assembly for the consideration of the most serious, the most exalted topics of human interest is too vitally precious to be lost.”

“We measure our enjoyments by the sum expended.”

“The unique personality which is the real life in me, I can not gain unless I search for the real life, the spiritual quality, in others. I am myself spiritually dead unless I reach out to the fine quality dormant in others. For it is only with the god enthroned in the innermost shrine of the other, that the god hidden in me, will consent to appear.”

“Love is the expansion of two natures in such fashion that each include the other, each is enriched by the other.”

“Love of country is like love of woman - he loves her best who seeks to bestow on her the highest good.”

“No one can fail to see that the power of the Church among large numbers in many communities is today diminishing, or has already ceased.”

“In a country of such recent civilization as ours, whose almost limitless treasures of material wealth invite the risks of capital and the industry of labor, it is but natural that material interests should absorb the attention of the people to a degree elsewhere unknown.”

“Simplicity should not be identified with bareness.”

“The hero is one who kindles a great light in the world, who sets up blazing torches in the dark streets of life for men to see by.”

“Few are there that will leave the secure seclusion of the scholar's life, the peaceful walks of literature and learning, to stand out a target for the criticism of unkind and hostile minds.”

“FOR a long time the conviction has been dimly felt in the community that, without prejudice to existing institutions, the legal day of weekly rest might be employed to advantage for purposes affecting the general good.”

“The family is the school of duties - founded on love.”

“Perhaps a hundred people assembled one evening, May 15, 1876, at the time when the country was celebrating the hundredth anniversary of its political independence.”

“An anxious unrest, a fierce craving desire for gain has taken possession of the commercial world, and in instances no longer rare the most precious and permanent goods of human life have been madly sacrificed in the interests of momentary enrichment.”

“[His research into biblical criticism had lead him to the conclusion that most of what was contained in traditional religion simply wasn't true]Was I to lie in order to teach the truth? ...Was I to repeat these words? It was impossible. It was certain they would stick in my throat. On these grounds the separation was decided by me.”

“The past speaks to us in a thousand voices, warning and comforting, animating and stirring to action.”

“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.”

“For more than three thousand years men have quarreled concerning the formulas of their faith.”