interest

Everyone of you, sooner or later, must stand at the forks of the road, and choose between personal interests and some principles of right.

A reply to Olbers' attempt in 1816 to entice him to work on Fermat's Theorem. I confess that Fermat's Theorem as an isolated proposition has very little interest for me, because I could easily lay down a multitude of such propositions, which one could neither prove nor dispose of. []

 The public interest is best served by the free exchange of ideas.

Some of us have turned our freedom into exploitation, our land into a dust bowl. We can't make a nation strong when it is held together by the rotten rope of self-interest. Too often we think of democracy only in terms of getting our rights.

Develop in youth the devotion to home interests and home affairs, to community interests and community affairs that led the founding fathers to establish a nation of communities upon this continent, dedicated to a decent, free life of equal opportunity under God, and consecrated to the principle that the State exists as an instrument for serving the individual, not for enslaving him. So instructed, American youth can be trusted.

In his capacity as an American citizen, each man of our Craft will do what seems to him wise and just and right and to the best interest of his country; but let us hope and pray that no echo of angry debate may be heard in any Lodge of Masons . . . lest we injure what is priceless. . . . By the same token, the men who stand out in our history, to whom we pay the highest homage, are the men of personality, principle and ideals, who, combining sympathy and good will with unbending loyalty to great truths, defied the cynical spirit and wrought disinterestedly for the common good. By as much as Masonry creates such men and endows them with moral ideals, by so much does it render its highest service to the country and the Craft.

One person with a belief is a social power equal to 99 who have only interests.

The individual is not accountable to society for his actions in so far as these concern the interests of no person but himself.

One person with a belief is equal to a force of ninety-nine who have only interest.

The principle of liberty and equality, if coupled with mere selfishness, will make men only devils, each trying to be independent that he may fight only for his own interest. And here is the need of religion and its power, to bring in the principle of benevolence and love to men.