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Think! Sample Articles
The World Union of Deists Quarterly Publication


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DAILY DEISTIC AND PROGRESSIVE THOUGHTS
"I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy permanent planet. The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time." Jack London


". . . Nature, the common parent of us all."

". . . Nature can never be overcome."

"Philosophy! The guide of our lives, the explorer of all that is good in us, exterminator of all evil! It is you who have brought peace into our lives; you who have relieved us of the fear of death."


". . . in life generally, the contemplation and study of Nature are far superior to the whole range of other human activities."


"The deepest knowledge and contemplation of Nature is but a very lame and imperfect business, unless it proceed and tend forward into action."

"The substance is more important than the form."

"An acute first-class brain is the finest asset anyone can have- and, if we want to be happy, it is an asset we must exploit to the uttermost." Cicero



"The pragmatist turns away from abstraction and insufficiency, from verbal solutions, from bad a priori reasons, from fixed principles, closed systems, and pretended absolutes and origins. He turns toward concreteness and adequacy, towards facts, towards action, and towards power." William James



"You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, 'I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.' You must do the thing you think you cannot do." Eleanor Roosevelt



"Do not fear death so much, but rather the inadequate life." Bertolt Brecht



"To teach us how to live without certainty, and yet without being paralyzed by hesitation, is perhaps the chief thing that philosophy, in our age, can still do for those who study it."

"It is preoccupation with possession, more than anything else, that prevents men from living freely and nobly."

"Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom." Bertrand Russell



"Nothing is terrible except fear itself." Francis Bacon



"We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us happy is something to be enthusiastic about." Charles Kingsley



"It is the duty of every true Deist to vindicate the moral justice of God against the evils of the Bible."

"I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. Tis the business of little minds to shrink, but he whose heart is firm and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death."

"The most formidable weapon against errors of every kind is reason. I have never used any other and I trust I never shall."

"While man keeps to the belief of one God, his reason unites with his creed. He is not shocked with contradictions and horrid stories. His bible is the heavens and the earth. He beholds his Creator in all His works, and everything he beholds inspires him with reverence and gratitude. From the goodness of God to all, he learns his duty to his fellow-man, and stands self-reproved when he transgresses it. Such a man is no persecutor."

"It is an affront to truth to treat falsehood with complaisance."

"The creation is the Bible of the Deist. He there reads, in the handwriting of the Creator himself, the certainty of His existence and the immutability of His power, and all other Bibles and Testaments are to him forgeries."

" . . . and having endeavored to force upon himself the belief of a system against which reason revolts, he ungratefully calls it human reason, as if man could give reason to himself."

"Is it because you are sunk in the cruelty of superstition, or feel no interest in the honor of your Creator, that you listen to the horrid tales of the Bible, or hear them with callous indifference?" Thomas Paine



"Hell is the impossibility of reason." from Oliver Stone's PLATOON



"Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up."

"Results! Why, man, I have gotten a lot of results. I know several thousand things that won't work." Thomas A. Edison



"Many persons have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose." Helen Keller



"If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put foundations under them." Thoreau



"If you trap the moment before it's ripe,

The tears of repentance

you'll certainly wipe;

But if once you let the ripe moment go

"You can never wipe off the tears of woe." William Blake



"A man who examines the saddle and bridle and not the animal itself when he is out to buy a horse is a fool; similarly, only an absolute fool values a man according to his clothes, or according to his position, which after all is only something we wear like clothing."

"To be really respected is to be loved; and love and fear will not mix."

"It's only when you are breathing your last that the way you've spent your time will become apparent. I accept the terms, and feel no dread of the coming judgment."

"It is philosophy that has the duty of protecting us. She will encourage us to submit to God with cheerfulness and to fortune with defiance; she will show you how to follow God and bear what chance may send you."

" . . . no one can lead a happy life, or even one that is bearable, without the pursuit of wisdom, and that the perfection of wisdom is what makes the happy life, although even the beginnings of wisdom make life bearable. Yet this conviction, clear as it is, needs to be strengthened and given deeper roots through daily reflection; making noble resolutions is not a important as keeping the resolutions you have made already." Seneca



"Have no fear of perfection - you'll never reach it. Salvador Dali



"The superior man thinks always of virtue; the common man thinks of comfort." Confucius



"One of the best ways to properly evaluate and adapt to the many environmental stresses of life is to simply view them as normal. The adversity and failures in our lives, if adapted to and viewed as normal corrective feedback to use to get back on target, serve to develop in us an immunity against anxiety, depression, and the adverse responses to stress. Instead of tackling the most important priorities that would make us successful and effective in life, we prefer the path of least resistance and do things simply that will relieve our tension, such as shuffling papers and majoring in minors." Denis Waitley



"Guilt is never a rational thing; it distorts all the faculties of the human mind, it perverts them, it leaves a man no longer in the free use of his reason, it puts him into confusion." Edmund Burke



"Why do you hunger for length of days? Is it to experience sensations and desires, or increase or cessation of growth? Is it to make use of the powers of speech or of thought? Does any of these things seem really worth coveting? Then if you think them beneth your notice, press on towards the final goal of all - which is the following of reason and of God. But to prize this, you must remember, is incompatible with any feelings of resentment that death will rob you of the others."

"For a life that is sound and secure, cultivate a thorough insight into things and discover their essence, matter, and cause; put your whole heart into doing what is just, and speaking what is true; and for the rest, know the joy of life by piling good deed on good deed until no rift or cranny appears between them."

" . . . the passing moment is all that a man can ever live or lose."

"Firstly, avoid all actions that are haphazard or purposeless; and secondly, let every action aim solely at the common good."

"How ample are the privileges vouchsafed to man - to do nothing but what God will approve, and accept everything God may assign!"

"Anger is as much a mark of weakness as is grief; in both of them men receive a wound, and submit to a defeat."

"Our anger and annoyance are more detrimental to us than the things themselves which anger or annoy us."

"Impermanence is the badge of each and every one."

"If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment." Marcus Aurelius



"The journey of ten thousand miles begins with a single phone call." Confucius Bell



"Often the difference between a successful person and a failure is not one's better abilities or ideas, but the courage that one has to bet on his ideas, to take calculated risk - and to act." Maxwell Maltz



"We should be taught not to wait for inspiration to start a thing. Action always generates inspiration. Inspiration seldom generates action." Frank Tibolt



"Guilt is the mafia of the mind." Bob Mandel



"Fall 7 times, stand up 8." Japanese Proverb



Success is not the result of spontaneous combustion. You must set yourself on fire." Reggie Leach



"When I do good I feel good; when I do bad I feel bad; and that's my religion."

"Quarrel not at all. No one resolved to make the most of himself can spare time for personal contention."

"Important principles may and must be inflexible."

"Hold on with a bulldog grip, and chew and choke as much as possible."

"Let the people know the truth and the country is safe."

"The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present."

"I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors, and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views."

"With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right."

"Happy day, when, all appetites controlled, all passions subdued, all matters subjected, mind, all conquering mind, shall live and move the monarch of the world. Glorious consummation! Hail fall of Fury! Reign of Reason, all hail!

"I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live up to what light I have."

"Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be."

"Towering genius disdains a beaten path. It seeks regions hitherto unexplored."

"The best thing about the future is that it comes only one day at a time."

"Upon the subject of education I can only say that I view it as the most important subject which we as a people may be engaged in."

"Always bear in mind that your own resolution to success is more important than any other one thing." Abraham Lincoln



"If the point is sharp, and the arrow is swift, it can pierce through the dust no matter how thick." Bob Dylan



"We live very close together. So, our prime purpose in this life is to help others. And if you can't help them, at least don't hurt them." The Dali Lama



"Nothing shall warp me from the belief that everyone is a lover of truth."

"There is no chance and no anarchy in the universe. All is system and gradation."

"The day of days, the great day of the feast of life, is that in which the inward eye opens to the Unity in things . . . This beatitude dips from on high down on us and we see. It is not in us so much as we are in it."

"The words I and mine constitute ignorance."

"All good is eternally reproductive. The beauty of nature reforms itself in the mind, and not for barren contemplation, but for new creation."

"The ancestor of every action is a thought."

"At the gates of the forest, the surprised man of the world is forced to leave his city estimates of great and small, wise and foolish . . . Here is a sanctity which shames our religions, and reality which discredits our heroes."

"Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment."

"There are many who are living far below their possibilities because they are continually handing over their individualities to others. Do you want to be a power in the world? Then be yourself. Be true to the highest within your soul and then allow yourself to be governed by no customs or conventionalities or arbitrary man-made rules that are not founded on principle." Ralph Waldo Emerson



"When I was born I was so surprised I didn't talk for a year and a half." Gracie Allen



"Write injuries in dust, benefits in marble."

"In the present weak state of human nature, surrounded as we are on all sides with ignorance and error, it little becomes poor, fallible man to be positive and dogmatical in his opinions."

"Speak little, do much."

"How exact and regular is every thing in the natural world! How wisely in every part contriv'd! We cannot here find the least defect! Those who have studied the mere animal and vegetable creation, demonstrate that nothing can be more harmonious and beautiful! All the heavenly bodies, the stars and planets, are regulated with the utmost Wisdom! And can we suppose less care to be taken in the order of the moral than in the natural system?"

"Hast thou not propos'd some certain end
to which thy life, thy every act may tend?
Hast thou no mark at which to bend thy bow?
Or like a boy pursu'st the carrion crow
With pellets and with stones, from tree to tree,
A fruitless toil, and liv'st extemore?"

"Think of three things, whence you came, where you are going, and to whom you must account."

"By the word simplicity, is not always meant folly or ignorance; but often, pure and upright Nature, free from artifice, craft or deceitful ornament." Ben Franklin



"Here is the test to find if your mission on earth is finished: If you're alive, it isn't." Richard Bach



"Nothing contributes so much to tranquilizing the mind as a steady purpose - a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye." Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley



"Strong lives are motivated by dynamic purposes." Kenneth Hildebrand



"Since nothing we intend is ever faultless, and nothing we attempt ever without error, and nothing we achieve without some measure of finitude and fallibility we call humanness, we are saved by forgiveness." David Augsburger



"For here we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it."

"May it be to the world, what I believe it will be (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all), the signal of arousing men to burst the chains under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves." (regarding the American Revolution)

"Your sect (Judaism) by its sufferings has furnished a remarkable proof of the universal spirit of religious intolerance inherent in every sect, disclaimed by all while feeble, and practiced by all when in power. Our laws have applied the only antidote to this vice, protecting all on an equal footing. But more remains to be done, for although we are free by law, we are not so in practice; public opinion srects itself into an Inquisition, and exercises its offices with as much fanaticism as fans the flames of an Auto-da-Fe." Thomas Jefferson


"Courage is doing what you're afraid to do. There can be no courage unless you're scared." Eddie Rickenbacker


" When we see we have gone wrong, it is our duty to retrace our footsteps and proceed again by the right path."

"Cowards can never be moral."

"Fear has its use, but cowardice has none."

"The acquisition of the spirit of nonresistance is a matter of long training in self-denial and appreciation of the hidden forces within ourselves. It changes one's outlook on life . . . It is the greatest force because it is the highest expression of the soul."

"Truth never damages a cause that is just."

"A reformer has to sail not with the current. Very often he has to go against it even though it may cost him his life."

"The mind of a man who remains good under compulsion cannot improve; in fact, it worsens."

"To a true artist, only that face is beautiful which, quite apart from its exterior, shines with the truth within the soul."

"Honest differences are often a healthy sign of progress."

"The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong."

"The greatest of man's spiritual needs is the need to be delivered from the evil and falsity that are in himself and in his society."

"Joy lives in the fight, in the attempt, in the suffering involved, not in the victory itself."

"It is beneath human dignity to lose one's individuality and become a mere cog in the machine."

"Where there is love, there is life; hatred leads to destruction."

"Every murder or other injury, no matter for what cause, committed or inflicted on another is a crime against humanity."

"Mankind has to get out of violence only through nonviolence."

"True nonviolence is an impossibility without the possession of unadulterated fearlessness."

"Silence becomes cowardice when occasion demands speaking out the whole truth and acting accordingly."

"Rights that do not flow from duty well performed are not worth having."

"Strength in numbers is the delight of the timid. The valiant in spirit glory in fighting alone."

"I believe in God, not as a theory but as a fact more real than that of life itself."
Gandhi



"I believe serious progress (in the abolition of war) can be achieved only when men become organized on an international scale and refuse, as a body, to enter military or war service."

"I appeal to all men and women, whether they be eminent or humble, to declare that they will refuse to give any further assistance to war or the preparation of war."

"I maintain that the cosmic religious feeling is the strongest and noblest motive for scientific research."

"Whatever there is of God and goodness in the universe, it must work itself out and express itself through us. We cannot stand aside and let God do it."

"I am a deeply religious nonbeliever. . . . This is a somewhat new kind of religion."
Albert Einstein


" Self-sufficiency is the greatest of all wealth."

"He who is not satisfied with a little, is satisfied with nothing."

"If the gods listened to the prayers of men, all humankind would quickly perish since they constantly pray for many evils to befall one another."

"That which creates unsurpassable joy is the removal of a great evil."

"By love of true philosophy we are delivered from every disturbing and painful desire."

"The mean soul is puffed up by successes, but brought down by adversity."

"Great abundance is heaped up as the result of brutalizing labor, but a miserable life is the result."

"A person is made unhappy either by fear or by endless and vain desire. The person who curbs these can attain for himself the blessed gift of reason."

"Justice's greatest reward is peace of mind."

"It is impossible for the one who instills fear to remain free from fear."

"Live your life without attracting attention."

"Happiness and blessedness do not belong to abundance of riches or exalted position or offices or power, but to freedom from pain and gentleness of feeling and a state of mind that sets limits that are in accordance with nature."

"Vain is the word of a philosopher, by which no mortal suffering is healed. Just as medicine confers no benefit if it does not drive away bodily, disease, so is philosophy useless if it does not drive away the suffering of the mind."
Epicurus



"Evil does not naturally dwell in the world, in events, or in people. Evil is a by-product of forgetfulness, laziness, or distraction: it arises when we lose sight of our true aim in life.

"When we remember that our aim is spiritual progress, we return to striving to be our best selves. This is how happiness is won."

"Don't surrender your mind.

"If someone were to casually give your body away to any old passerby, you would naturally be furious.

"Why then do you feel no shame in giving your precious mind over to any person who might wish to influence you? Think twice before you give up your own mind to someone who may revile you, leaving you confused and upset."

"In trying to please other people, we find ourselves misdirected toward what lies outside our sphere of influence. In doing so we lose our hold on our life's purpose.

"Content yourself with being a lover of wisdom, a seeker of the truth. Return and return again to what is essential and worthy.

"Do not try to seem wise to others.

"If you want to live a wise life, live it on your own terms and in your own eyes."

"Attache yourself to what is spiritually superior, regardless of what other people think or do. Hold to your true aspirations no matter what is going on around you."

"Instead of averting your eyes from the painful events of life, look at them squarely and contemplate them often. By facing the realities of death, infirmity, loss, and disappointment, you free yourself of illusions and false hopes and you avoid miserable, envious thoughts."

"So you think, so you become."

"Other people's views and troubles can be contagious. Don't sabotage yourself by unwittingly adopting negative, unproductive attitudes through your associations with others."

"It is much better to die of hunger unhindered by grief and fear than to live affluently beset with worry, dread, suspicion, and unchecked desire."

"Begin at once a program of self-mastery. But start modestly, with the little things that bother you. Has your child spilled something? Have you misplaced your wallet? Say to yourself, 'Coping calmly with this inconvenience is the price I pay for my inner serenity, for freedom from perturbation; you don't get something for nothing.'"

"Nothing truly stops you. Nothing truly holds you back. For your own will is always within your control.

"Sickness may challenge your body. But are you merely your body? Lameness may impede your legs. But you are not merely your legs. Your will is bigger than your legs.

"Your will needn't be affected by an incident unless you let it. Remember this with everything that happens to you."

"Every difficulty in life presents us with an opportunity to turn inward and to invoke our own submerged inner resources. The trials we endure can and should introduce us to our strengths.

"Prudent people look beyond the incident itself and seek to form the habit of putting it to good use."

"Never depend on the admiration of others. There is no strength in it. Personal merit cannot be derived from an external source. It is not to be found in your personal associations, nor can it be found in the regard of other people, even people who love you, will not necessarily agree with your ideas, understand you, or share your enthusiasms. Grow up! Who cares what other people think about you!

"You have been given your own work to do. Get to it right now, do your best at it, and don't be concerned with who is watching you. Create your own merit."
Epictetus


"To live with dignity we must first discover our fundamental beliefs and then live by them."

"When I was lost and alone I finally took the time to know myself. The discovery was worth the discomfort."

"When you are physically 'stuck', remember that you are still spiritually FREE."
Ros Stiles