Source: 1930s, Education and the Social Order (1932), p. 110
Context: Owing to the identification of religion with virtue, together with the fact that the most religious men are not the most intelligent, a religious education gives courage to the stupid to resist the authority of educated men, as has happened, for example, where the teaching of evolution has been made illegal. So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence; and in this respect ministers of religion follow gospel authority more closely than in some others.
Source: 1930s, Education and the Social Order (1932), p. 110
Foreword to Creation, Evolution, & Modern Science (2000)
1990s
What Would You Substitute for the Bible as a Moral Guide? (1900)
Context: What then is, or can be called, a moral guide? The shortest possible answer is one word: Intelligence. We want the experience of mankind, the true history of the race. We want the history of intellectual development, of the growth of the ethical, of the idea of justice, of conscience, of charity, of self-denial. We want to know the paths and roads that have been traveled by the human mind. These facts in general, these histories in outline, the results reached, the conclusions formed, the principles evolved, taken together, would form the best conceivable moral guide. We cannot depend on what are called “inspired books,” or the religions of the world. These religions are based on the supernatural, and according to them we are under obligation to worship and obey some supernatural being, or beings. All these religions are inconsistent with intellectual liberty. They are the enemies of thought, of investigation, of mental honesty. They destroy the manliness of man. They promise eternal rewards for belief, for credulity, for what they call faith. This is not only absurd, but it is immoral.
“So far no one had had enough courage and intelligence to reveal me to my dear Germans.”
Letter to Carl Fuchs (14 December 1887)
Context: So far no one had had enough courage and intelligence to reveal me to my dear Germans. My problems are new, my psychological horizon frighteningly comprehensive, my language bold and clear; there may well be no books written in German which are richer in ideas and more independent than mine.
As reported in Einstein — A Life (1996) by Denis Brian, when asked about a clipping from a magazine article reporting his comments on Christianity as taken down by Viereck, Einstein carefully read the clipping and replied, "That is what I believe." .
1920s, Viereck interview (1929)
“In the Praise ever due to the Gospel of Grace
Its Universality holds the first Place.”
X & XI
Miscellaneous Poems (1773), A Paraphrase on the Prayer used in The Church Liturgy for All Sorts and Conditions Of Men
Context: The Church is indeed, in its real Intent,
An Assembly where Nothing but
Friendship is meant;
And the utter Extinction of Foeship and Wrath
By the Working of Love in the Strength of its Faith.
This gives it its holy and catholic Name,
And truly confirms its apostolic Claim;
Showing what the One Saviour's One Mission had been:
"Go and teach all the World," — ev'ry Creature therein. In the Praise ever due to the Gospel of Grace
Its Universality holds the first Place.
When an Angel proclaim'd Its glad Tidings the Morn
That the Son of the Virgin, the Saviour, was born,
"Which shall be to all People," was said to complete
The angelical Message, so good and so great,
Full of " Glory to God," in the Regions Above,
And of "Goodness to Men," is so Boundless a Love.
Source: The Way of All Flesh (1903), Ch. 34
On the Sermon on the Mount, as translated by William Findlay (1888), Book I, Ch. 1 http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/16011.htm
Context: If any one will piously and soberly consider the sermon which our Lord Jesus spoke on the mount, as we read it in the Gospel according to Matthew, I think that he will find in it, so far as regards the highest morals, a perfect standard of the Christian life: and this we do not rashly venture to promise, but gather it from the very words of the Lord Himself. For the sermon itself is brought to a close in such a way, that it is clear there are in it all the precepts which go to mould the life. … He has sufficiently indicated, as I think, that these sayings which He uttered on the mount so perfectly guide the life of those who may be willing to live according to them, that they may justly be compared to one building upon a rock.
Progress and Poverty (1879)
Context: There is, and always has been, a widespread belief among the more comfortable classes that the poverty and suffering of the masses are due to their lack of industry, frugality, and intelligence. This belief, which at once soothes the sense of responsibility and flatters by its suggestion of superiority, is probably even more prevalent in countries like the United States, where all men are politically equal, and where, owing to the newness of society, the differentiation into classes has been of individuals rather than of families, than it is in older countries, where the lines of separation have been longer, and are more sharply, drawn. It is but natural for those who can trace their own better circumstances to the superior industry and frugality that gave them a start, and the superior intelligence that enabled them to take advantage of every opportunity, to imagine that those who remain poor do so simply from lack of these qualities.
But whoever has grasped the laws of the distribution of wealth, as in previous chapters they have been traced out, will see the mistake in this notion. The fallacy is similar to that which would be involved in the assertion that every one of a number of competitors might win a race. That any one might is true; that every one might is impossible.
For, as soon as land acquires a value, wages, as we have seen, do not depend upon the real earnings or product of labor, but upon what is left to labor after rent is taken out; and when land is all monopolized, as it is everywhere except in the newest communities, rent must drive wages down to the point at which the poorest paid class will he just able to live and reproduce, and thus wages are forced to a minimum fixed by what is called the standard of comfort — that is, the amount of necessaries and comforts which habit leads the working classes to demand as the lowest on which they will consent to maintain their numbers. This being the case, industry, skill, frugality, and intelligence can avail the individual only in so far as they are superior to the general level just as in a race speed can avail the runner only in so far as it exceeds that of his competitors. If one man work harder, or with superior skill or intelligence than ordinary, he will get ahead; but if the average of industry, skill, or intelligence be brought up to the higher point, the increased intensity of application will secure but the old rate of wages, and he who would get ahead must work harder still.
“Now they sing out his praises on every distant shore
But so few remember what he was fightin' for”
"Bound For Glory" http://web.cecs.pdx.edu/~trent/ochs/lyrics/bound-for-glory.html from All the News That's Fit to Sing (1964)
Lyrics
Context: Now they sing out his praises on every distant shore
But so few remember what he was fightin' for
Oh why sing the songs and forget about the aim?
He wrote them for a reason, why not sing them for the same?
