I think . . . that philosophy has the duty of pointing out the falsity of outworn religious ideas, however estimable they may be as a form of art. We cannot act as if all religion were poetry while the greater part of it still functions in its ancient guise of illicit science and backward morals. . . .

The theory that everyone acts from self-interest, direct or indirect, is psychologically unsound. . . . Throughout history . . . there have been millions of men and women with some sort of Humanist philosophy who have consciously given up their lives for a social ideal.

The intuition of free will gives us the truth.

The highest ethical duty is often to discard the outmoded ethics of the past.

The act of willing this or that, of choosing among various courses of conduct, is central in the realm of ethics.

To define twentieth-century humanism briefly, I would say that it is a philosophy of joyous service for the greater good of all humanity in this natural world and advocating the methods of reason, science, and democracy.

The dynamic, creative present, however conditioned and restricted by the effects of prior presents, possesses genuine initiative.