If reason be a gift of Heaven, and we can say as much of faith, Heaven has certainly made us two gifts not only incompatible, but in direct contradiction to each other. In order to solve the difficulty, we are compelled to say either that faith is a chimera or that reason is useless.

They mistake the first manifestations of a developing sexual nature for the voice of God calling them to Himself; and it is precisely when nature is inciting them that they embrace a fashion of life contrary to nature's wish.

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

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.

One must be oneself very little of a philosopher not to feel that the finest privilege of our reason consists in not believing in anything by the impulsion of a blind and mechanical instinct, and that it is to dishonour reason to put it in bonds as the Chaldeans did. Man is born to think for himself.

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

A nation which thinks that it is belief in God and not good law which makes people honest does not seem to me very advanced.