Kirby Page Quotes

Ethically and morally, man has also made progress. From the earliest dawn of recorded history strong men made slaves of the weak. Primitive man regarded woman much as he did a slave or an animal, an instrument through which his comfort and pleasure might be increased. Contrast the former custom of exposing infants, the aged, and the helpless to the elements or to wild beasts, when their presence became a burden, with the present practice of erecting orphans' homes, homes for the aged, and asylums for the helpless.

The earliest authority was the word of the strongest warrior, the head of the family or the tribe, the medicine man or the witch doctor.

So great has been man's progress that today all civilized nations have their great universities, with highly trained specialists, who devote a lifetime to the study of some minute detail of a particular department. His ideas have become so extended and complex that hundreds of thousands of words are necessary to give expression to his thoughts, and libraries with millions of volumes contain only a fraction of his written convictions. ...the knowledge of the average man on the street is incomparably higher than that of the eminent scholar of a few centuries ago.

Perhaps the greatest delicacy on the table of many primitive men consisted of certain choice morsels from the roasted body of a slain enemy.

Jesus assumes the wisdom, power, love, and accessibility of God. Without attempting to prove these attributes, he simply acts as if their truth were beyond dispute.

The supreme need of the world today is for a true conception and a deeper knowledge of God. The Hindu mother tosses her baby to the crocodiles, the devout pilgrim mutilates his body, the pious monk retires to the wilderness, the martial Moslem massacres the unbelieving, the consecrated missionary lays down his life for his enemy—all of these deeds are founded on varying conceptions of God.

By what name shall we call this animating principle of the universe, this source of all phenomana? Some call it Force or Energy or Mind, others call it God. Some call this idea a working hypothesis, others call it Faith.

To the degree that a man possesses a vivid ideal of the good life, submerges himself in the sea of human misery and endeavors to alleviate suffering, kindles imagination in hours of silence and by visions of beauty, and follows the noblest personality into the presence of a loving, suffering Father—to the extent that he lives meaningfully, he will be convinced of sin and cry aloud for deliverance.

All of our boasted wealth, wonderful inventions and incalculable mechanical power will prove to be an unstable foundation if we continue to dwell together in strife—individual against individual, class against class, nation against nation.

One of the most dangerous phases of self-interest in industry has been the part it has played in bringing about wars between nations.

Strife in industry is increasingly becoming a struggle between groups or classes.

One of the most significant results of the industrial struggle during the past fifty years has been the creation of a condition of a vast inequality of wealth and income. This inequality is so extreme that it now constitutes one of the chief sources of bitterness and strife in modern life. ...not that the poor have been getting poorer but that the number and sizes of great fortunes have increased enormously.

In former days the struggle for existence was chiefly a struggle against nature, today it is primarily a struggle against other human beings.

The supreme task before the people of the United States today is the Americanizing and, above all, the Christianizing of the great cities of the country. ...It calls for consecrated leadership and prayer of the intensest sort.