The final test of religious faith... is whether it will enable men to endure insecurity without complacency or despair, whether it can so interpret the ancient verities that they will not become mere escape hatches from responsibilities but instruments of insights into what civilization means.

The society in which each man lives is at once the basis for, and the nemesis of, that fulness of life which each man seeks.

Humour is, in fact, a prelude to faith; and laughter is the beginning of prayer … Laughter is swallowed up in prayer and humour is fulfilled by faith.

The fanatic is dangerous.

What is so funny about us is precisely that we take ourselves too seriously. Laughter is the same and healthy response to the innocent foibles of men; and even to some which are not innocent.

The chief source of man's inhumanity to man seems to be the tribal limits of his sense of obligation to other men.

A genuine faith resolves the mystery of life by the mystery of God.

A church has the right to set its own standards within its community. I don't think it has a right to prohibit birth control or to enforce upon a secular society its conception of divorce and the indissolubility of the marriage tie.

There is no social evil, no form of injustice whether of the feudal or the capitalist order which has not been sanctified in some way or other by religious sentiment and thereby rendered more impervious to change.

Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.

Original sin is that thing about man which makes him capable of conceiving of his own perfection and incapable of achieving it.

The fence and the boundary line are the symbols of the spirit of justice. They set the limits upon each man's interest to prevent one from taking advantage of the other.

Life is a battle between faith and reason in which each feeds upon the other, drawing sustenance from it and destroying it.

Reason is not the sole basis of moral virtue in man. His social impulses are more deeply rooted than his rational life.

Nationalism: One of the effective ways in which the modern man escapes life's ethical problems.

The more complex the world situation becomes, the more scientific and rational analysis you have to have, the less you can do with simple good will and sentiment.

There must be a realm of truth beyond political competence, that's why there must be a separation of churches, but if religion is bad and a bad religion is one that gives an ultimate sanctity to some particular cause.

Religion mustn't interfere with the state -- so one of the basic Democratic principles as we know it in America is the separation of church and state.

Man is endowed by nature with organic relations to his fellow men; and natural impulse prompts him to consider the needs of others even when they compete with his own.

The cross symbolizes a cosmic as well as historic truth. Love conquers the world, but its victory is not an easy one.