Felix Adler Quotes

• There is as yet no civilized society, but only a society in the process of becoming civilized. There is as yet no civilized nation, but only nations in the process of becoming civilized. From this standpoint, we can now speak of a collective task of humankind. The task of humanity is to build a genuine civilization.

  Felix Adler

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Civilization

• The hero is one who kindles a great light in the world, who sets up blazing torches in the dark streets of life for men to see by. The saint is the man who walks through the dark paths of the world, himself a light.

  Felix Adler

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Integrity/Individuality, Hero, Example

• Love is the expansion of two natures in such fashion that each include the other, each is enriched by the other.

  Felix Adler

  Topics in Love

• Love of country is like love of woman — he loves her best who seeks to bestow on her the highest good.

  Felix Adler

  Tags in Patriotism

• The human race may be compared to a writer. At the outset a writer has often only a vague general notion of the plan of his work, and of the thought he intends to elaborate. As he proceeds, penetrating his material, laboring to express himself fitly, he lays a firmer grasp on his thought; he finds himself. So the human race is writing its story, finding itself, discovering its own underlying purpose, revising, recasting a tale pathetic often, yet none the less sublime.

  Felix Adler

  Topics in Humanity

  Tags in Humanism, Purpose

• Religion is a wizard, a sibyl . . .
  She faces the wreck of worlds, and prophesies restoration.
  She faces a sky blood-red with sunset colours that deepen into darkness, and prophesies dawn.
  She faces death, and prophesies life.

  Felix Adler

  Topics in Death, Religion

• Every dogma, every philosophic or theological creed, was at its inception a statement in terms of the intellect of a certain inner experience.

  Felix Adler

  Topics in Experience, Religion

• No religion can long continue to maintain its purity when the church becomes the subservient vassal of the state.

  Felix Adler

  Tags in Religious Freedom

• Ethical religion can be real only to those who are engaged in ceaseless efforts at moral improvement. By moving upward we acquire faith in an upward movement, without limit.

  Felix Adler

  Topics in Progress, Religion, Service

  Tags in Ethics

• To care for anyone else enough to make their problems one’s own, is ever the beginning of one’s real ethical development.

  Felix Adler

  Topics in Service

  Tags in Ethics, Problem Solving, Compassion

• We stand, as it were, on the shore, and see multitudes of our fellow beings struggling in the water, stretching forth their arms, sinking, drowning, and we are powerless to assist them.

  Felix Adler

  Topics in Suffering

• The truth which has made us free will in the end make us glad also.

  Felix Adler

  Topics in Truth

• The unique personality which is the real life in me, I can not gain unless I search for the real life, the spiritual quality, in others. I am myself spiritually dead unless I reach out to the fine quality dormant in others. For it is only with the god enthroned in the innermost shrine of the other, that the god hidden in me, will consent to appear.

  Felix Adler

  Topics in God, Religion, Spirituality

  Tags in Connections, Worth

• The conception of worth, that each person is an end per se, is not a mere abstraction. Our interest in it is not merely academic. Every outcry against the oppression of some people by other people, or against what is morally hideous is the affirmation of the principle that a human being as such is not to be violated. A human being is not to be handled as a tool but is to be respected and revered.

  Felix Adler

  Topics in Respect

  Tags in Integrity/Individuality, Ethics, Reverence, Worth

Felix Adler (34)

Birth:	13th August, 1851
Death:	24th April, 1933
Nationality:	American
Profession:	Professor, Social Reformer

About

Felix Adler was born in Alzey, Grand Duchy of Hesse, Germany. He was a German-born American professor of political and social ethics, rationalist, influential lecturer on euthanasia, religious leader and social reformer who founded the Ethical Culture movement. He graduated from Columbia University in 1870 with honors. He received a PhD from Heidelberg University in 1873. In 1902 he was given the chair of political and social ethics at Columbia University, where he taught until his death in 1933. He wrote several books include: Creed and Deed, The Moral Instruction of Children, Life and Destiny, The Religion of Duty, Marriage and Divorce, An Ethical Philosophy of Life, and The Essentials of Spirituality.

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