"The spiritual life depends on self-recollection and detachment from the rush of life; it depends on facing frankly the thought of death; it is signalized, especially, by the identification of self with others, even of the guiltless with the guilty. Spirituality is sometimes spoken of as if it were a kind of moral luxury, a work of supererogation, a token of fastidiousness and over-refinement. It is nothing of the sort. Spirituality is simply morality carried to its farthest bounds; it is not an airy bauble of the fancy, it is of "the tough fibre of the human heart.
Felix Adler
Born: August 13, 1851 Died: April 24, 1933
Felix Adler (13 August 1851 – 24 April 1933) was a Jewish professor of political and social ethics, rationalist, popular lecturer, religious leader and social reformer who founded the Ethical Culture movement, and is often considered one of the main influences on modern Humanism and Humanistic Judaism. He founded the Ethical Culture Fieldston School as a free kindergarten in 1878.
Biographical information from: Wikiquote
Love is the expansion of two natures in such fashion that each include the other, each is enriched by the other
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To care for anyone else enough to make their problems one's own, is ever the beginning of one's real ethical development.
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.
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.
[His research into biblical criticism had lead him to the conclusion that most of what was contained in traditional religion simply wasn't true]
Was I to lie in order to teach the truth? ...Was I to repeat these words? It was impossible. It was certain they would stick in my throat. On these grounds the separation was decided by me.
Act so as to elicit the best in others and thereby in thyself.