Creed and Deed: A Series of Discourses

Felix Adler founded the Ethical Society, which is where I go on Sunday mornings while others are going to Church. This book is a selection of his speeches for the first year of the organization's existence, published in 1877. What's interesting is that it is an actual copy of the 1877 edition, scratches and all. Adler was not only very, very smart, but an excellent speaker. My copy of the book is now decorated with highlighter pen to save many pithy quotes for use in my writing. Because of course he is talking about fundamentals of Ethical Culture; that is, of cultivating a more just and ethical society. It starts with the individual, as everything does. Some gems: "the general concurrence of the whole human race in any form of error would not make that error less erroneous, and the testimony of united millions against a solitary thinker might kick the beam when balanced in the scales of truth." "Truly disinterestedness [unselfishness] is the distinguishing mark of every high endeavor." "And he who claims a reward because of his virtue, has thereby forfeited his right to maintain the claim, since that is not virtue, which looks for reward." "The bloom of human life is morality; whatever else we may possess, health, and wealth, power, grace, knowledge, have a value only as they lead up to this; have a meaning only as they make this possible." "[T]he idea of Jehovah sprang from the soil of the family, and the conception of a divine father in heaven was derived from the analogy of the noblest of moral institutions on earth. The spiritual God of the Hebrews was the personification of the moral Ideal." "It were sad indeed if morality depended upon the certainty of dogma." "[T]he commandment not to kill a being like ourselves was recognized from the first, but in the earliest times, only members of the same family were esteemed beings like ourselves; to kill a neighbor was not wrong. The family widened into the clan, the clan into the people, and all the nations are now embraced in the common bond of humanity." "The rules of good breeding may be reduced to two; self-possession and deference. . . . Self-possession is essentially self-respect. Deference, too, is a primary conditon of all courtesy. It teaches us to concede to others whatever we claim for ourselves." "The word manners has the same meaning as morals. When we shall have better morals, we shall have truer and sweeter manners." "From earliest childhood the young must be trained on a nobler method, and in the ethical school lies the main work of preparation." [on grieving] "In alleviating the misery of others, your own misery will be alleviated, and in healing you will find that there is cure." "[A]ll men are capable of heart goodness, and goodness is the better part of religion . . . generous confidence is the highest principle of education . . . to trust men is the surest means of leading them to respond to our confidence . . . cease therefore to preach the depravity