In life one cannot eat his cake and have it, too; he must make his choice and then do the best he can to be content to go the way his judgment leads.

We're all killers at heart . . . . I have never taken anybody's life, but I have often read obituary notices with considerable satisfaction.

Every one knows that the heavenly bodies move in certain paths in relation to each other with seeming consistency and regularity which we call [physical] law. ... No one attributes freewill or motive to the material world. Is the conduct of man or the other animals any more subject to whim or choice than the action of the planets? ... We know that man's every act is induced by motives that led or urged him here or there; that the sequence of cause and effect runs through the whole universe, and is nowhere more compelling than with man.

The really intelligent are as abnormal as the defective. The great masses of men are rather mediocre, and those above and below are exceptions.

A jury is more apt to be unbiased and independent than a court, but they very seldom stand up against strong public clamor. Judges naturally believe the defendant is guilty.

Can any rational person believe that the Bible is anything but a human document? We now know pretty well where the various books came from, and about when they were written. We know that they were written by human beings who had no knowledge of science, little knowledge of life, and were influenced by the barbarous morality of primitive times, and were grossly ignorant of most things that men know today.

I cannot tell and I shall never know how many words of mine might have given birth to cruelty in place of love and kindness and charity.