Let us drink together, fellows, as we did in days of yore. And still enjoy the golden hours that Fortune has in store; The absent friends remembered be, in all that’s sung or said, And Love immortal consecrate the memory of the dead.
Less glory is more liberty. When the drum is silent, reason sometimes speaks.
It is not in the books of the Philosophers, but in the religious symbolism of the Ancients, that we must look for the footprints of Science, and re-discover the Mysteries of Knowledge.
Pride is not the heritage of man; humility should dwell with frailty, and atone for ignorance, error, and imperfection.
Masonry is a search after Light. That search leads us directly back, as you see, to the Kabalah.
Man’s real genius and knowledge remains preserved in books.
A man should live with his superiors as he does with his fire: not too near, lest he burn; nor too far off, lest he freeze.
War is a series of catastrophes which result in victory.
We Masons are among the fortunate ones who are taught to meet together with others opposing convictions or competitive ideas and yet respect each other as Brothers.
It is most true, that Truth is a Divine attribute and the foundation of every virtue. To be true, and to seek to find and learn the Truth, are the great objects of every good Mason.
Faith begins where Reason sinks exhausted.
To work with the hands or brain, according to our requirements and our capacities, to do that which lies before us to do, is more honorable than rank and title.
Two forms of government are favorable to the prevalence of falsehood and deceit. Under a Despotism, men are false, treacherous, and deceitful through fear, like slaves dreading the lash. Under a Democracy they are so as a means of attaining popularity and office, and because of the greed for wealth.
The sovereignty of one’s self over one’s self is called Liberty.
But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him. God is a spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.
A war for a great principle ennobles a nation.
Force, unregulated or ill-regulated, is not only wasted in the void, like that of gunpowder burned in the open air, and steam unconfined by science; but, striking in the dark, and its blows meeting only the air, they recoil, and bruise itself.
For it is true now, as it always was and always will be, that to be free is the same thing as to be pious, to be wise, to be temperate and just, to be frugal and abstinent, and to be magnanimous and brave; and to be the opposite of all these is the same as to be a slave.
True thoughts have duration in themselves. If the thoughts endure, the seed is enduring; if the seed endures, the energy endures; if the energy endures, then will the spirit endure. The spirit is thought; thought is the heart; the heart is the fire; the fire is the Elixir.
Be prudent, diligent, temperate and discreet. Remember that every human being has a claim upon your kind offices.