“Ideas are invented only as correctives to the past. Through repeated rectifications of this kind one may hope to disengage an idea that is valid.”

The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness (2004)
Context: The one and only test of a valid religious idea, doctrinal statement, spiritual experience, or devotional practice was that it must lead directly to practical compassion. If your understanding of the divine made you kinder, more empathetic, and impelled you to express this sympathy in concrete acts of loving-kindness, this was good theology. But if your notion of God made you unkind, belligerent, cruel, or self-righteous, or if it led you to kill in God's name, it was bad theology. Compassion was the litmus test for the prophets of Israel, for the rabbis of the Talmud, for Jesus, for Paul, and for Muhammad, not to mention Confucius, Lao-tsu, the Buddha, or the sages of the Upanishads.

Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction (1942), It Must Be Abstract
Context: p>Begin, ephebe, by perceiving the idea
Of this invention, this invented world,
The inconceivable idea of the sun.You must become an ignorant man again
And see the sun again with an ignorant eye
And see it clearly in the idea of it.Never suppose an inventing mind as source
Of this idea nor for that mind compose
A voluminous master folded in his fire.</p

Source: The Lost Symbol

Source: Artificial Societies of Intelligent Agents (2001), p. 86

" VIII. ON "LET A HUNDRED FLOWERS BLOSSOM LET A HUNDRED SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT CONTEND" AND "LONG-TERM COEXISTENCE AND MUTUAL SUPERVISION" "
On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People
Original: (zh-CN) 对于非马克思主义的思想，应该采取什么方针呢？对于明显的反革命分子，破坏社会主义事业的分子，事情好办，剥夺他们的言论自由就行了。对于人民内部的错误思想，情形就不相同。禁止这些思想，不允许这些思想有任何发表的机会，行不行呢？当然不行。对待人民内部的思想问题，对待精神世界的问题，用简单的方法去处理，不但不会收效，而且非常有害。不让发表错误意见，结果错误意见还是存在着。而正确的意见如果是在温室里培养出来的，如果没有见过风雨，没有取得免疫力，遇到错误意见就不能打胜仗。因此，只有采取讨论的方法，批评的方法，说理的方法，才能真正发展正确的意见，克服错误的意见，才能真正解决问题。

The How and Why of Fitting Things Together

The Law of Mind (1892)

Source: The Santaroga Barrier (1968), Chapter Ten

The Friendship Case: Space Brothers teach lessons of brotherhood – an excerpt by Gerard Aartsen Share International http://share-international.org/magazine/old_issues/2011/2011-04.htm#correo (2011)