Muhammad established a religion by putting his enemies to death; Jesus Christ by commanding his followers to lay down their lives.

Man's greatness is great in that he knows himself wretched. A tree does not know itself wretched. It is then being wretched to know oneself wretched; but it is being great to know that one is wretched.

Chess is the gymnasium of the mind.

To doubt is a misfortune, but to seek when in doubt is an indispensable duty. So he who doubts and seeks not is at once unfortunate and unfair.

Now, if the passions had no hold on us, a week and a hundred years would amount to the same.

Let man then contemplate nature in full and lofty majesty, and turn his eyes away from the mean objects which surround him. Let him look at the dazzling light hung aloft as an eternal lamp to lighten the universe; let him behold the earth, a mere dot compared with the vast circuit which that orb describes, and stand amazed to find that the vast circuit itself is but a very fine point compared with the orbit traced by the starts as they roll their course on high.

Religion is so great a thing that it is right that those who will not take the trouble to seek it if it be obscure, should be deprived of it.