“Straight tribulation is easier to bear than tribulation which advertises itself as pleasure.”

“...What I have denied and what my reason compels me to deny, is the existence of a Being throned above us as a god, directing our mundane affairs in detail, regarding us as individuals, punishing us, rewarding us as human judges might. When the churches learn to take this rational view of things, when they become true schools of ethics and stop teaching fables, they will be more effective than they are to-day... If they would turn all that ability to teaching this one thing – the fact that honesty is best, that selfishness and lies of any sort must surely fail to produce happiness – they would accomplish actual things. Religious faiths and creeds have greatly hampered our development. They have absorbed and wasted some fine intellects. That creeds are getting to be less and less important to the average mind with every passing year is a good sign, I think, although I do not wish to talk about what is commonly called theology. The criticisms which have been hurled at me have not worried me. A man cannot control his beliefs. If he is honest in his frank expression of them, that is all that can in justice be required of him. Professor Thomson and a thousand others do not in the least agree with me. His criticism of me, as I read it, charged that because I doubted the soul’s immortality, or ‘personality,’ as he called it, my mind must be abnormal, ‘pathological,’ in other, words, diseased... I try to say exactly what I honestly believe to be the truth, and more than that no man can do. I honestly believe that creedists have built up a mighty structure of inaccuracy, based, curiously, on those fundamental truths which I, with every honest man, must not alone admit but earnestly acclaim. I have been working on the same lines for many years. I have tried to go as far as possible toward the bottom of each subject I have studied. I have not reached my conclusions through study of traditions; I have reached them through the study of hard fact. I cannot see that unproved theories or sentiment should be permitted to have influence in the building of conviction upon matters so important. Science proves its theories or it rejects them. I have never seen the slightest scientific proof of the religious theories of heaven and hell, of future life for individuals, or of a personal God. I earnestly believe that I am right; I cannot help believing as I do... I cannot accept as final any theory which is not provable. The theories of the theologians cannot be proved. Proof, proof! That is what I always have been after; that is what my mind requires before it can accept a theory as fact. Some things are provable, some things disprovable, some things are doubtful. All the problems which perplex us, now, will, soon or late, be solved, and solved beyond a question through scientific investigation. The thing which most impresses me about theology is that it does not seem to be investigating. It seems to be asserting, merely, without actual study. ...Moral teaching is the thing we need most in this world, and many of these men could be great moral teachers if they would but give their whole time to it, and to scientific search for the rock-bottom truth, instead of wasting it upon expounding theories of theology which are not in the first place firmly based. What we need is search for fundamentals, not reiteration of traditions born in days when men knew even less than we do now.

“Complain and remain. Praise and be raised.” 

“Now-people” are winners; they say “now” and they do it “now”! Do not delay.”

“Teach the children so it won't be necessary to teach the adults.”

“We do not love people so much for the good they have done us, as for the good we do them”

“there is nothing, right or wrong, which belief, plus burning desire, cannot make real. These qualities are free to everyone

“If you can not fly then run. If you can not run then walk. If you can not walk then crawl, but whatever you do keep moving forward”

“The proper teaching is recognized with ease. You can know it without fail because it awakens within you that sensation which tells you this is something you’ve always known.”

“The potential beauty of human life is constantly made ugly by man's ever-recurring song of retaliation.”

“We must become holy not because we want to feel holy, but because Christ must be able to live His life fully in us.”

“We, here in Western civilization, have failed to master the concept of living in the moment. We spend so much time worrying about yesterday or planning tomorrow that we fail to live today.”

“You've got to be around people who encourage you, advice you and want to see you go even higher and higher than they themselves have attained!”

“Hay una fuerza motriz más poderosa que el vapor, la electricidad y la energía atómica. Esa fuerza es la voluntad”

“No group of American citizens should be singled out for extra taxation and no group should be spared taxation on the federal level.”