The word heretic ought to be a term of honour.

Idle and meaningless ... a form less solemn to me than the affirmation I would have reverently made.

Without free speech no search for Truth is possible; without free speech no discovery of Truth is useful; without free speech progress is checked, and the nations no longer march forward towards the nobler life which the future holds for man. Better a thousandfold abuse of free speech than denial of free speech. The abuse dies in a day; but the denial stays the life of the people and entombs the hope of the race.

[That] my body be buried as cheaply as possible and no speeches be permitted at my funeral.

The word heretic ought to be a term of honour.

Will any one, save the most bigoted, contend, that it is not certain gain to humanity to spread unbelief in the terrible doctrine that eternal torment is the probable fate of the great majority of the human family?

A mere society form of Atheism.