The cause-effect sequences in our brains are just as determining, just as inescapable, as anywhere else in Nature.

I believe firmly that in making ethical decisions, man has the prerogative of true freedom of choice.

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.

Overemphasis on the sex aspect of morality has led to a neglect of its other aspects and a narrowing of its range.

Since Humanism as a functioning credo is so closely bound up with the methods of reason and science, plainly free speech and democracy are its very lifeblood. For reason and scientific method can flourish only in an atmosphere of civil liberties.

Feelings of right and wrong that at first have their locus within the family gradually develop into a pattern for the tribe or city, then spread to the much larger unit of the nation, and finally from the nation to mankind as a whole.

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