Mankind, transmitting from generation to generation the legacy of accumulated vengeances, and pursuing with the feelings of duty the misery of their fellow-beings, have not failed to attribute to the Universal Cause a character analogous with their own. The image of this invisible, mysterious Being is more or less excellent and perfect resembles more or less its original in proportion to the perfection of the mind on which it is impressed.
That a god like Jehovah should have created this world of misery and woe, out of pure caprice, and because he enjoyed doing it, and should then have clapped his hands in praise of his own work, and declared everything to be very good-that will not do at all!
The meaning of this is, that whomsoever we love, in him we find our own soul in the highest sense. The final truth of our existence lies in this. God, the Supreme Soul, is in me, as well as in my son, and my joy in my son is the realisation of this truth.
If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.
I say to mankind, Be not curious about God. For I, who am curious about each, am not curious about God - I hear and behold God in every object, yet understand God not in the least.
If God holds me to be a pure instrument for the spread of nonviolence in place of the awful violence now ruling the earth, He will give me the strength and show me the way.