Harvey Spencer Lewis

"To me the change called "death", and which is better understood as transition, is merely a change from one form of physical, material and psychological existence to another. I believe the change is identical in importance and consequence to that change which takes place when the embryo of a newly born child takes its first breath and becomes a living entity on this earth plane. I do not attempt to say how, or what form or type of existence the individuality, personality, character or mentality of a human being may be like after this so-called transition, but of one thing I am convinced, and that is that this transition which we call "death" does not end the whole of our existence nor affect our existence except in its mode of physical, mental, spiritual and psychological expression. Consequently I have no fear of death except that I would not like to have it occur suddenly before I could prepare papers and other matters that would concern myself or my family after my inability to function any further here in this particular form."

"We are impressed with the fact that the physical body did not take on life but that the invisible, infinite soul took on a physical form by the uniting of the breath with the body. Even the ancients were impressed with this significance, and in their philosophies, which gradually evolved into theological principles, we are constantly reminded of the fact that man is essentially a soul clothed with a body, and not a body animated with a soul."

"More fortunes in money and in the material things of life have been lost by those who hesitated out of fear than by those who ventured too quickly and without caution."

"In order to evolve and become what nature and the Divine intended us to be, we must attune ourselves with this process of constant change. We must become a part of the great parade of onward marchers which constitutes the army of evolution throughout nature. The moment people cease to be of that onward movement, they do not stand still. They simply retrograde, because nature and all humanity pass on and leave them standing, as it were, or moving backward until in a very short time they find themselves among the primitive ones, among the undeveloped, the unprogressive, the ignorant, and the sufferers."