"They sit in meditation in the Ghosts’ Cave at the foot of the Black Mountain idly without preaching and without saying anything. Drawing their eyebrows together and closing their eyes, they say they are in the state of absolute samadhi and in the state of their fathers and mothers not yet born. Further, calling this state silence filled with eternal light, they identify their meditation with Zen." (Ta-hui Tsung-kao [letter to Chosha Jogen (Chang-she Chuang-yuan)] 1134)
"If the wrong person preaches a right teaching, even a right teaching can become wrong. If a right person expounds a wrong teaching, even a wrong teaching can become right." (Muso Soseki, "Muchū Mondō" ["Dialogues in a Dream", cca. 1344)
"Admire the diamond that can bear the hits of a hammer. Many deceptive preachers, when critically examined, turn out to be false." (Kabir, "Bijak", 17th century)
"My ideal indeed can be put into a few words and that is; to preach unto mankind their divinity, and how to make it manifest in every movement of life. God is in every man, whether man knows it or not; your loving devotion is bound to call up the divinity in him." (Swami Vivekananda, 1896)
"Philosophy rests on a proposition that whatever is is right. Preaching begins by assuming that whatever is is wrong." (Elbert G Hubbard, The Philistine, 1897)
"In the great struggle between ignorance, distrust and brutality on one side, knowledge, understanding and peace on the other the scientist must stand fearlessly on the side of the latter, strengthening link between man and man and preaching that the only effective weapon of self-defense is good-will to others." (Albert Szent-Györgyi, [Nobel lecture] 1937)
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