Religion is so frequently a source of confusion in political life, and so frequently dangerous to democracy, precisely because it introduces absolutes into the realm of relative values.

The mastery of nature is vainly believed to be an adequate substitute for self mastery.

I thank heaven I have often had it in my power to give help and relief, and this is still my greatest pleasure. If I could choose my sphere of action now, it would be that of the most simple and direct efforts of this kind.

For man as an historical creature has desires of indeterminate dimensions.

Men have never been individually self-sufficient.

When a church reaches up beyond its group and tries to enforce its standards upon a society that doesn't accept these standards, and perhaps for good reason, perhaps for bad reason, but anyway this is the problem we face in pluralistic society, that not necessarily every standard that every church tries to enforce upon the society is from the society's standpoint a good standard.

Human beings are endowed by nature with both selfish and unselfish impulses.