Top 35 Arthur Keith Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Evolution is unproved and unprovable. We believe it only because the only alternative is special creation, and that is unthinkable.”

— Arthur Keith

2. “Reason has not tamed desire: it is as strong as ever.”

— Arthur Keith

3. “Human nature, as manifested in tribalism and nationalism, provides the momentum of the machinery of human evolution.”

— Arthur Keith

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4. “My personal conviction is that science is concerned wholly with truth, not with ethics.”

— Arthur Keith

5. “Tribal life comes automatically to an end when a primitive people begins to live in a town or a city, for sooner or later a tribal organization is found to be incompatible with life in a city.”

— Arthur Keith

6. “I am a rank individualist.”

— Arthur Keith

7. “Tolerance is held to be a condition of mind which is encouraged by, and is necessary for, civilization.”

— Arthur Keith

8. “Universalism as an ideal is as old as nay, is probably much more ancient than the Christian ideal.”

— Arthur Keith

9. “The discovery of agriculture was the first big step toward a civilized life.”

— Arthur Keith

10. “Man is by nature competitive, combative, ambitious, jealous, envious, and vengeful.”

— Arthur Keith

11. “The German Fuhrer, as I have consistently maintained, is an evolutionist; he has consistently sought to make the practices of Germany conform to the theory of evolution.”

— Arthur Keith

12. “Christianity has not conquered nationalism; the opposite has been the case nationalism has made Christianity its footstool.”

— Arthur Keith

13. “Before the discovery of agriculture mankind was everywhere so divided, the size of each group being determined by the natural fertility of its locality.”

— Arthur Keith

14. “Whichever theory we adopt to give a rational explanation of human existence, that theory must take into account and explain the mental nature we see at work in all modern communities.”

— Arthur Keith

15. “This world of ours has been constructed like a superbly written novel: we pursue the tale with avidity, hoping to discover the plot.”

— Arthur Keith

16. “Civilization, we shall find, like Universalism and Christianity, is anti evolutionary in its effects; it works against the laws and conditions which regulated the earlier stages of man’s ascent.”

— Arthur Keith

17. “We shall never understand the ethical system taught by Jesus unless we realize that he was a Jew, not only by birth, but that he lived and taught as a Jew; the Sermon on the Mount was addressed to his distracted fellow nationals.”

— Arthur Keith

18. “Good men, whether they be Christians or rationalists, do not desire to discriminate between races, but the distinctions implanted by Nature are too conspicuous to escape the observation of our senses.”

— Arthur Keith

19. “In a tribal organization, even in time of peace, service to tribe or state predominates over all self seeking; in war, service for the tribe or state becomes supreme, and personal liberty is suspended.”

— Arthur Keith

20. “It is just because civilization is ever evolving, changing, and becoming more complicated, that experts find it so difficult to define it in explicit terms.”

— Arthur Keith

21. “The main force used in the evolving world of humanity has hitherto been applied in the form of war.”

— Arthur Keith

22. “Civilization never stands still; if in one country it is falling back, in another it is changing, evolving, becoming more complicated, bringing fresh experience to body and mind, breeding new desires, and exploiting Nature’s cupboard for their satisfaction.”

— Arthur Keith

23. “Nowhere is Universalism welcomed and encouraged by a people; everywhere governments have forced and are forcing Universalism upon unwilling and resistant subjects.”

— Arthur Keith

24. “The course of human history is determined, not by what happens in the skies, but what takes place in our hearts.”

— Arthur Keith

25. “There are very few men and women in whom a Universalist feeling is altogether lacking; its prevalence suggests that it must be part of our inborn nature and have a place in Nature’s scheme of evolution.”

— Arthur Keith

26. “Under no stretch of imagination can war be regarded as an ethical process; yet war, force, terror, and propaganda were the evolutionary means employed to weld the German people into a tribal whole.”

— Arthur Keith

27. “There are the further difficulties of building a population out of a diversity of races, each at a different stage of cultural evolution, some in need of restraint, many in need of protection; everywhere a bewildering Babel of tongues.”

— Arthur Keith

28. “In every man there is an instinctive and passionate reaction if his person or liberty is attacked.”

— Arthur Keith

29. “Religious leaders and men of science have the same ideals; they want to understand and explain the universe of which they are part; they both earnestly desire to solve, if a solution be ever possible, that great riddle: Why are we here?”

— Arthur Keith

30. “No tribe unites with another of its own free will.”

— Arthur Keith

31. “The proper balance between individual liberty and central authority is a very ancient problem.”

— Arthur Keith

32. “I prize the conditions under which I have lived because they have permitted me to choose my opportunities, to inquire into such matters as interested me, and to publish what I believed to be true, uncontrolled by any central authority.”

— Arthur Keith

33. “No tempting form of error is without some latent charm derived from truth.”

— Arthur Keith

34. “A drunkard is one thing, and a temperate man is quite another.”

— Arthur Keith

35. “As long as man remains an inquiring animal, there can never be a complete unanimity in our fundamental beliefs. The more diverse our paths, the greater is likely to be the divergence of beliefs.”

— Arthur Keith