We can never have a world that is anything more or less than it is made by
the people who live in it.
One can do much more working for society than he can if he works only
for himself.
Neither the school nor the Church is an orphans’ home for the purpose of
taking the responsibility of raising people’s children from the shoulders
of those to whom it belongs.
A righteous community, state, or nation is only a group of individuals
wearing, each for himself, the clean, white garments of right living.
Each individual transgression writes itself into the world life.
Freedom needs to recognize its own proper limits, and it will do so in any
properly organized social system.
A city is not made of streets, but of those who walk on them; not of
stores, but of those who trade in them; not of machinery, but of those
who drive it; not of houses, but of those who live in them. A city is its
people. It is exactly as good or bad, as strong or weak, as desirable or
undesirable, as enduring or temporary, as are they. With them it will go
forward or backward, be an object of admiration or contempt,
stand or fall, live or die.
The life and destiny of a nation are largely determined by what it
considers great.---A nation made up of people who measure greatness by
service will not be treading the path to national doom so long as this is
true. It will be moving forward in the way of a larger and richer life.
...we must not forget that the principle of democracy does not diminish
the necessity for conviction and fidelity. The disregard of obligation
is not freedom.
The apostolic Church was not a temple but a community. It must be the same
with the modern Church.
Only while the mind craves knowledge and the heart feels the throb of
the social impulse does the eye remain undimmed and the natural
force unabated.
As we once tried to have the Holy Spirit transform hearts, and still must,
so too we must now endeavor to have the Holy Spirit cleanse and exalt
social relationships.
Friendship, like everything else worth while, is the reward of
proper effort.
The most valuable friend is the friend who is one for friendship’s
sake alone.
One must live for more than self, or he never lives at all.
The lily of life never comes to the fullness of its bloom until the heart
has found someone to love, to toil for, to sacrifice for.
It has always taken the prophet and the toiler together to achieve human
progress in the best sense.
No one else cares to help the person who tries to help no one but himself.
The world has its heroes, but they are those whose chief concern has been
for their people.
Think of others sympathetically, and give them credit for everything
you can.
The ties that bind us to the hearts of others are the cables that help to
drag us toward the dust or to lift us in the direction of the heights.