My own view on religion is that of Lucretius. I regard it as a disease born of fear and as a source of untold misery to the human race.

To understand a name you must be acquainted with the particular of which it is a name.

If the State does not acquire supremacy over [vast private] enterprises, it becomes their puppet, and they become the real State.

The first step in a fascist movement is the combination under an energetic leader of a number of men who possess more than the average share of leisure, brutality, and stupidity. The next step is to fascinate fools and muzzle the intelligent, by emotional excitement on the one hand and terrorism on the other.

The Mormons had a divine revelation in favour of polygamy, but under pressure from the United States Government they discovered that the revelation was not binding.

The world that I should wish to see would be one freed from the virulence of group hostilities and capable of realizing that happiness for all is to be derived rather from co-operation than from strife. I should wish to see a world in which education aimed at mental freedom rather than imprisoning the minds of the young in rigid armor of dogma calculated to protect them through life against the shafts of impartial evidence.

To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness.