I should like to believe my people's religion, which was just what I could wish, but alas, it is impossible. I have really no religion, for my God, being a spirit shown merely by reason to exist, his properties utterly unknown, is no help to my life. I have nor the parson's comfortable doctrine that every good action has its reward, and every sin is forgiven. My whole religion is this: do every duty, and expect no reward for it, either here or hereafter.

All the time that he can spare from the adornment of his person, he devotes to the neglect of his duties.

The man who suffers from a sense of sin is suffering from a particular kind of self-love. In all this vast universe the thing that appears to him of most importance is that he himself should be virtuous. It is a grave defect in certain forms of traditional religion that they have encouraged this particular kind of self-absorption.

Curious learning not only makes unpleasant things less unpleasant but also makes pleasant things more pleasant.

God and Satan alike are essentially human figures, the one a projection of ourselves, the other of our enemies.

Is the set of all sets which are not members of themselves a member of itself?

For the learning of every virtue there is an appropriate discipline, and for the learning of suspended judgment the best discipline is philosophy.