Abstract qualities begin With capitals alway: The True, the Good, the Beautiful- Those are the things that pay!
Humanists try to behave decently and honorably without any expectation of rewards or punishments in an afterlife. The creator of the universe has been unknown to us so far. We serve as well as we can to the highest abstraction of which we have some understanding, which is our community.
The corporeal element in man is a large screen and partition that prevents him from perfectly perceiving abstract ideals; this would be the case even if the corporeal element were as pure and superior as the substance of the spheres ; how much more must this be the case with our dark and opaque body. However great the exertion of our mind may be to comprehend the Divine Being or any of the ideals, we find a screen and partition between God and us.
Idealism is no good. Any concrete dedication to an abstract condition results in unpleasant things like wars.
The ideal has many names, and beauty is but one of them.
No cause, no God, no abstract idea can justify the mass slaughter of innocents.
We cannot set up, out of our heads, something we regard as an ideal society.
We claim we believe in compassion, which is an abstract, and when it's personified we discredit the man
Normally, what you’re envious of is a book, not a writer: standards, ideas, levels … almost nonexistent things.
