Does not vanity itself cease to be blamable, is it not even ennobled, when it is directed to laudable objects, when it confines itself to prompting us to great and generous actions?

But if you will recall the history of our civil troubles, you will see half the nation bathe itself, out of piety, in the blood of the other half, and violate the fundamental feelings of humanity in order to sustain the cause of God: as though it were necessary to cease to be a man in order to prove oneself religious!

I have only a small flickering light to guide me in the darkness of a thick forest. Up comes a theologian and blows it out.

Posterity for the philosopher is what the other world is for the religious man.

If there are one hundred thousand damned souls for one saved soul, the devil has always the advantage without having given up his son to death.

Do you see this egg? With this you can topple every theological theory, every church or temple in the world.

I am wholly yours - you are everything to me; we will sustain each other in all the ills of life it may please fate to inflict upon us; you will soothe my troubles; I will comfort you in yours.