December 22

Nothing seems to check the notion that the way to improve civilization is affected by changing its outer forms. This notion is false, and draws the activity of too many people away from effort that truly can improve our lives.

 

Civilization is first of all a moral thing. Without truth, respect for duty, love of neighbor, virtue, everything is destroyed. The morality of a society is alone the basis of civilization.

— Henri Amiel

 

The proper direction of man's thought is not toward the creation of new laws for government, but toward the acceptance of every person's moral dignity.

— Edmund Yates

 

Socialism, when compared with Christianity, is a rather minor, secondary question about the material needs of the working class. It stands outside the basic questions of human life.

— Fyodor Strakhov

 

We should, first of all, understand that we are all children of the same father, and we should fulfill the same general law: live not for ourselves, but to help others be happy.

— Giuseppi Mazzini

 

When we accept false and violent laws and submit to them, we can neither establish truth nor combat lies in this world.