Rudolph Rocker Quotes

Meditation may require a lifetime to master, but it will have been a lifetime well spent. ... If you want to judge your progress, ask yourself these questions: Am I more loving? Is my judgment sounder? Do I have more energy? Can my mind remain calm under provocation? Am I free from the conditioning of anger, fear, and greed? Spiritual awareness reveals itself as eloquently in character development and selfless action as in mystical states.

I am sure it is one's duty as a teacher to try to show boys that no opinions, no tastes, no emotions are worth much unless they are one's own. I suffered acutely as a boy from the lack of being shown this.

The object of education is to prepare the young to educate themselves throughout their lives.

A child educated only at school is an uneducated child.

Intelligence is not enough. Intelligence plus character—that is the goal of true education.

Do not allow the Church or the State to govern your thought or dictate your judgment.

I don't mean to say that I'm about to state my credo here on this page, but merely to affirm, sincerely for the first time in my life, my belief in man as an individual and independent entity. Certainly not independence in the everyday sense of the word, but pertaining to a freedom and mobility of thought that few people are able - or even have the courage - to achieve.

There is something out of gear about graded schools and all that. Memory is developed at the expense of what in general we are pleased to call thought and character.

Thoughts lead to acts, acts lead to habits, habits lead to character - and our character will determine our eternal destiny.

In true democracy every man and woman is taught to think for himself or herself.

A talent can be cultivated in tranquility; a character only in the rushing stream of life.

Intelligence plus character-that is the goal of true education.

The next sentence is one of the most important spiritual truths you will ever learn: God develops the fruit of the Spirit in your life by allowing you to experience circumstances in which you're tempted to express the exact opposite quality. Character development always involves a choice, and temptation provides that opportunity.

By education, I mean an all-round drawing of the best in child and man in body, mind and spirit.

We all want to live a happy life and have a right to do so, whether through work or spiritual practice. I'm subject to destructive emotions like anger and jealousy the same as you, but we all have potential for good too. However, our existing education system is oriented towards material development; neglecting inner values. Consequently we lack a clear awareness of the inner values that are the basis of a happy life.

I don't ever want to be the type of person to tell you what to think or what to believe. Whatever stage in your life that you are in, I want you to organically reach whatever conclusions that you possibly reach.

Vermont tradition is based on the idea that group life should leave each person as free as possible to arrange his own life. This freedom is the only climate in which (we feel) a human being may create his own happiness. ... Character itself lies deep and secret below the surface, unknown and unknowable by others. It is the mysterious core of life, which every man or woman has to cope with alone, to live with, to conquer and put in order, or to be defeated by.

What could be more important than equipping the next generation with the character and competence they need to become successful

Our education apparatus can't be one that produces robots. That can happen in laboratory. There has to be overall personality development.

Character formation cannot be taught. It comes from experience and not from explanation.

Be yourself and think for yourself, and while your conclusions may not be infallible they will be nearer right than the inclusions forced upon you by those who have a personal interest in keeping you in ignorance.

Collectivism means the subjugation of the individual to a group - whether to a race, class or state does not matter. Collectivism holds that man must be chained to collective action and collective thought for the sake of what is called 'the common good'.

It took me years to learn that character is fate and that no one can be made over.

One of the goals of a spiritual practice is self-awareness, and one of the best tools of self-awareness is simple emotional vulnerability.

Big-heartednes s is the most essential virtue on the spiritual journey.