The platform of an Ethical Society is itself the altar; the address must be the fire that burns thereon.

The exercises of our meeting are to be simple and devoid of all ceremonial and formalism.

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

If you desire information on some point of law, you are not likely to ponder over the ponderous tomes of legal writers in order to obtain the knowledge you seek, by your own unaided efforts.

Every dogma, every philosophic or theological creed, was at its inception a statement in terms of the intellect of a certain inner experience.

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.

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.

Simplicity should not be identified with bareness.

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.

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.

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.

The office of the public teacher is an unenviable and thankless one.

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

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.

Where the roots of private virtue are diseased, the fruit of public probity cannot but be corrupt.

The platform of an Ethical Society is itself the altar; the address must be the fire that burns thereon.

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.

The Ethical Society, therefore, is like a Church in maintaining, and emphasizing the importance of maintaining the custom of public assemblies on Sunday.

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

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.

We measure our enjoyments by the sum expended.

Ethical religion can be real only to those who are engaged in ceaseless efforts at moral improvement. By moving upward we acquire faith in an upward movement, without limit.

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.

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.

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

No religion can long continue to maintain its purity when the church becomes the subservient vassal of the state.

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

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

A human being is not to be handled as a tool but is to be respected and revered.

People may be said to resemble not the bricks of which a house is build but the pieces of a picture puzzle each differing in shape but matching the rest and thus bringing out the picture.

Dogma is the convictions of one man imposed authoritatively upon others.

Every dogma every philosophic or theological creed was at its inception a statement in terms of the intellect of a certain inner experience.

To care for anyone else enough to make their problems ones own is ever the beginning of ones real ethical development.

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.

I am not authorized to fire substitute teachers.

Removing substantial fuel loads from our forests helps prevent catastrophic fire and better protects species, watersheds and neighboring communities that call them home.

A thought often makes us hotter than a fire.

Envy like fire always makes for the highest points.

A leaf fluttered in through the window this morning, as if supported by the rays of the sun, a bird settled on the fire escape, joy in the task of coffee, joy accompanied me as I walked.

From each one of them rose separate columns of smoke, meeting in a pall overhead, and through the smoke came stabbing flashes of fire as German shells burst with thudding shocks of sound. This was the front line of battle.

Not too much, though there's a certain amount of rancour and bitterness when someone tries to fire you.

I was at this casino minding my own business, and this guy came up to me and said, "You're gonna have to move, you're blocking a fire exit." As though if there was a fire, I wasn't gonna run. If you're flammible and have legs, you are never blocking a fire exit.

In all feats of fire-eating it should be noted that the head is thrown well back, so that the flame may pass out of the open mouth instead of up into the roof, as it would if the head were held naturally.

Wise anger is like fire from a flint: there is great ado to get it out; and when it does come, it is out again immediately.

The bourgeois prefers comfort to pleasure, convenience to liberty, and a pleasant temperature to the deathly inner consuming fire.

The best training is to play by ear: trial by fire.

Being thrown into the fire and getting the thing turned around in a hurry made it more difficult. Things have been done the hard way. I think you learn better when things are done the hard way.

Under pressure, people admit to murder, setting fire to the village church or robbing a bank, but never to being bores.

Man is a fire-stealing animal, and we can't help building machines and machine intelligences, even if, from time to time, we use them not only to outsmart ourselves but to bring us right up to the doorstep of Doom.