“Certainly, the belief held in some quarters, and stated with an air of scientific precision, that the material environment is the active force which is ever urging to new mental development.” “As a member of a social group man is dominated by his ideas of things, and any movement of reform must take cognizance of that fact if it is to cherish reasonable hope of success.” “Motives of Self-interest may enter into the defense of an institution, and in some cases may be responsible for the attempt to plant an institution where it does not exist, but in the main institution persist because of their harmony with a frame of mind that is favorable to their being.” “The outstanding feature of what may be called the natural history of associated life is the way in which biologic processes are gradually dominated by psychologic ones.” “Instead of achieving conquest of his environment by developing an organic structure man creates an inorganic tool.” “In a sense he subdues and molds the environment to his needs, rather than modifies his structure in order to cope with the environments.” “Another Proof that man does best when he limits himself to thinking about what can be done to make human life more controllable and more reasonable.” “What each has by biologic heredity is a given structure that is capacity.” “The direction of that capacity, the command it enables one to acquire over his environment, is in turn determined by the society into which he happens to be born.” “The product of human capacity are the materials of which civilizations built: these products constitute the inheritance which one generation receives from another.” “Whether this inheritance be large or small, simple or complex it is the chief determinate which shapes the personality of each individual.” “Mathew 5:5 Blessed are the meek for they will inherit the earth.” “It is entirely a question of acquiring a new point of view from which to examine the subject.” “We may put it broadly that improvement comes from an enlightened way of looking at things.” “It is Enlightenment of moral sense by the growth of new ideas, by the impact of new and expanding knowledge leading to a revaluation of things that is responsible for change.” “We do not intend to abandon speculation, but to plant it if we can, on a better foundation, and build it up to a better method.” “The condition of social development is the realization that no institution and no teaching is beyond criticism.” “Criticism, rejection and modification are the means by which social progress is achieved.” “It is by criticism of existing ideas and institutions by the rejection of what is incapable of improvement and by the modification of what permits of betterment that we show ourselves worthy of the better traditions of the past and profitable servants of the present and future.” “Our Art, our inventions, our institutions are all so many illustrations of the power of mind in transforming the environment.” “A society shut in on itself is always comparatively unprogressive, and but for the movement of classes would be completely so.” “Their readers find themselves no longer bewildered spectators of a given social wrong but have become conscious of their own hypocrisy in regard to it and they realize that a veritable horror, simply because it was hidden, had come to seem to them inevitable and almost normal.” “After all Human progress is deeply indebted to study of imperfects, and the counsels of despair, if not full of seasoned wisdom, are at least fertile in suggestion and a desperate spur to action.”