Frances Wright

He who lives in the single exercise of his mental faculties, however usefully or curiously directed, is equally an imperfect animal with the man who knows only the exercise of muscles. ”

Now here is a departure from the first principle of true ethics. Here we find ideas of moral wrong and moral right associated with something else than beneficial action. The consequent is, we lose sight of the real basis of morals, and substitute a false one. ”

Man has been adjudged a social animal. ”

Our religious belief usurps the place of our sensations, our imaginations of our judgment. We no longer look to actions, trace their consequences, and then deduce the rule; we first make the rule, and then, right or wrong, force the action to square with it. ”

Know why you believe, understand what you believe, and possess a reason for the faith that is in you. ”

A necessary consequent of religious belief is the attaching ideas of merit to that belief, and of demerit to its absence. ”

Surely it is time to examine into the meaning of words and the nature of things, and to arrive at simple facts, not received upon the dictum of learned authorities, but upon attentive personal observation of what is passing around us. ”

Look into the nature of things. Search out the grounds of your opinions, the for and against. ”

All that I say is, examine, inquire. Look into the nature of things. Search out the grounds of your opinions, the for and against. Know why you believe, understand what you believe, and possess a reason for the faith that is in you. ”

Speak of change, and the world is in alarm. And yet where do we not see change? ”