I do not deny God, because that word conveys to me no idea, and I cannot deny that which presents to me no distinct affirmation, and of which the would-be affirmer has no conception. I cannot war with a nonentity. If, however, God is affirmed to represent an existence which is distinct from the existence of which I am a mode, and which it is alleged is not the noumenon of which the word I represents only a speciality of phenomena, then I deny God, and affirm that it is impossible God can be.

Without free speech no search for Truth is possible; without free speech no discovery of Truth is useful.

I know not what you mean by God; the word God is to me a sound conveying no clear or distinct affirmation.

If when I am libelled I take no notice, the world believes the libel. If I sue, I have to pay about one hundred pounds' costs for the privilege, and gain the smallest coin the country knows for recompense.

Is it not gain to have diminished the faith that it was the duty of the wretched and the miserable to be content with the lot in life which providence had awarded them?

I cannot follow you Christians; for you try to crawl through your life upon your knees, while I stride through mine on my feet.

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