Felix Adler quotes

Felix Adler was an American circus performer best known as the “King of Clowns” in the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. His unique comedic style and elaborate costumes delighted audiences for decades. He became a beloved icon in the history of American entertainment. Here are 82 of his quotes:

Where the roots of private virtue are diseased, the fruit of public probity cannot but be corrupt. (Felix Adler)
Ethical religion can be real only to those who are engaged in ceaseless efforts at moral improvement. By moving upward we acquire faith in an upward movement, without limit. View quote
Felix Adler
The past speaks to us in a thousand voices, warning and comforting, animating and stirring to action. View quote
Felix Adler
The freedom of thought is a sacred right of every individual man, and diversity will continue to increase with the progress, refinement, and differentiation of the human intellect. View quote
Felix Adler
Every dogma, every philosophic or theological creed, was at its inception a statement in terms of the intellect of a certain inner experience. View quote
Felix Adler
If you desire information on some point of law, you are not likely to ponder over the ponderous tomes of legal writers in order to obtain the knowledge you seek, by your own unaided efforts. View quote
Felix Adler
Love is the expansion of two natures in such fashion that each include the other, each is enriched by the other. View quote
Felix Adler
We should teach our children nothing which they shall ever need to unlearn; we should strive to transmit to them the best possessions, the truest thought, the noblest sentiments of the age in which we live. View quote
Felix Adler
When the light of the sun shines through a prism it is broken into beautiful colours, and when the prism is shattered, still the light remains. So does the life of life shine resplendent in the forms of our friends, and so, when their forms are broken, still their life remains; and in that life we are united with them; for the life of their life is also our life, and we are one with them by ties indissoluble. View quote
Felix Adler
The family is the school of duties - founded on love. View quote
Felix Adler
As the light of morning strikes now one peak and then another, some being illuminated while others are in the shadow, so the light of the essential moral principle shines now upon one duty and then upon another, while others are in the shadow. (Felix Adler)
It is the moral element contained in it that alone gives value and dignity to a religion, and only in so far as its teachings serve to stimulate and purify our moral aspirations does it deserve to retain its ascendency over mankind. View quote
Felix Adler
An anxious unrest, a fierce craving desire for gain has taken possession of the commercial world, and in instances no longer rare the most precious and permanent goods of human life have been madly sacrificed in the interests of momentary enrichment. View quote
Felix Adler
By what sort of experience are we led to the conviction that spirit exists? On the whole, by searching, painful experience. The rose Religion grows on a thorn-bush, and we must not be afraid to have our fingers lacerated by the thorns if we would pluck the rose. View quote
Felix Adler
In order to join vigorously in the moral work of the world I must believe that somehow the best I can accomplish will endure, will leave its trace on things, will aid the final consummation. View quote
Felix Adler
We should seek to free the moral life from the embarrassments and entanglements in which it has been involved by the quibbles of the schools and the mutual antagonisms of the sects; to introduce into it an element of downrightness and practical earnestness; above all, to secure to the modern world, in its struggle with manifold evil, the boon of moral unity, despite intellectual diversity. View quote
Felix Adler
Simplicity should not be identified with bareness. View quote
Felix Adler
The platform of an Ethical Society is itself the altar; the address must be the fire that burns thereon. View quote
Felix Adler
FOR a long time the conviction has been dimly felt in the community that, without prejudice to existing institutions, the legal day of weekly rest might be employed to advantage for purposes affecting the general good. View quote
Felix Adler
What I state as certain is certain for me. It has approved itself as such in my experience. Let others consult their experience, and see how far it tallies with that which is here set forth. View quote
Felix Adler
The office of the public teacher is an unenviable and thankless one. (Felix Adler)
No one can fail to see that the power of the Church among large numbers in many communities is today diminishing, or has already ceased. View quote
Felix Adler
I believe in the supreme excellence of righteousness; I believe that the law of righteousness will triumph in the universe over all evil; I believe that in the attempt to fulfil the law of righteousness, however imperfect it must remain, are to be found the inspiration, the consolation, and the sanctification of human existence. We live in order to finish an, as yet, unfinished universe, unfinished so far as the human, that is, the highest part of it, is concerned. We live in order to develop the superior qualities of man which are, as yet, for the most part latent. View quote
Felix Adler
It is the nature of the noble and the good and the wise that they impart to us of their nobility and their goodness and their wisdom while they live, making it natural for us to breathe the air they breathe and giving us confidence in our own untested powers. And the same influence in more ethereal fashion they continue to exert after they are gone. View quote
Felix Adler
You do not build your own houses, nor make your own garments, nor bake your own bread, simply because you know that if you were to attempt all these things they would all be more or less ill done. View quote
Felix Adler