Quote#War
A war for a great principle ennobles a nation. A war for commercial…
Quote byAlbert Pike · 1809–1891
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry (1871), Ch. III : The Master, p. 70.
English (original)
A war for a great principle ennobles a nation. A war for commercial supremacy, upon some shallow pretext, is despicable, and more than aught else demonstrates to what immeasurable depths of baseness men and nations can descend.
— Albert Pike
More from Albert Pike
Though Masonry neither usurps the place of, nor apes religion, prayer is an essential part of our ceremonies.
Less glory is more liberty. When the drum is silent, reason sometimes speaks.
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 …
To attack the citadels built up on all sides against the human race by superstitions, despotisms, and prejudices, the Force must have a brain and a law. Then its deeds of daring produce permanent results, and there is real progress.
The two great motors are Truth and Love.
The unknown is an ocean, of which conscience is the compass. Thought, meditation, prayer, are the great mysterious pointings of the needle.