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.

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 picture the vast realm of the sciences as an immense landscape scattered with patches of dark and light. The goal towards which we must work is either to extend the boundaries of the patches of light, or to increase their number. One of these tasks falls to the creative genius; the other requires a sort of sagacity combined with perfectionism.

Oh! how near are genius and madness! Men imprison them and chain them, or raise statues to them.

Whether God exists or does not exist, He has come to rank among the most sublime and useless truths.

Only the bad man is alone.

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