
"No Religion is an Island", p. 266
Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity: Essays (1997)
1920s, Truth is a Pathless Land (1929)
Context: I maintain that Truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect. That is my point of view, and I adhere to that absolutely and unconditionally. Truth, being limitless, unconditioned, unapproachable by any path whatsoever, cannot be organized; nor should any organization be formed to lead or to coerce people along any particular path. If you first understand that, then you will see how impossible it is to organize a belief. A belief is purely an individual matter, and you cannot and must not organize it. If you do, it becomes dead, crystallized; it becomes a creed, a sect, a religion, to be imposed on others. This is what everyone throughout the world is attempting to do. Truth is narrowed down and made a plaything for those who are weak, for those who are only momentarily discontented. Truth cannot be brought down, rather the individual must make the effort to ascend to it. You cannot bring the mountain-top to the valley. If you would attain to the mountain-top you must pass through the valley, climb the steeps, unafraid of the dangerous precipices.
"No Religion is an Island", p. 266
Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity: Essays (1997)
Source: Democracy Realizedː The Progressive Alternative (1998), p. 15
“People are not to be blamed for their doubts, but that they make no effort to arrive at the truth.”
Source: The Autobiography of a Super-Tramp (1908), Ch. XXXIV
“Individualism is rather like innocence; there must be something unconscious about it.”
Company Manners: A Cultural Inquiry into American Life (1954)
"How Many Americans Does It Take to Change a Dim Bulb?" Presented to the Second Annual Freedom Summit, Phoenix, Arizona, 12 & 13 October 2002 http://www.lneilsmith.org/freedomsummit2.html.
Address at the Centennial Celebration Banquet of the National Education Association http://www.eisenhower.archives.gov/all_about_ike/quotes.html (4 April 1957)
1950s