The liberty of the individual is a necessary postulate of human progress.

All the great things of humanity have been accomplished in the name of absolute principles.

A nation is a body of people who have done great things together.

The simplest schoolboy is now familiar with truths for which Archimedes would have sacrificed his life.

It is evident, indeed, that such a doctrine, taken by itself in a literal manner, had no future. The world, in continuing to exist, caused it to crumble. One generation of man at the most was the limit of its endurance. The faith of the first Christian generation is intelligible, but the faith of the second generation is no longer so. After the death of John, or of the last survivor, whoever he might be, of the group which had seen the master, the word of Jesus was convicted of falsehood.

True Christianity, which will last forever, comes from the gospel words of Christ not from the epistles of Paul. The writings of Paul have been a danger and a hidden rock, the causes of the principal defects of Christian theology.

He whom God has touched will always be a being apart: he is, whatever he may do, a stranger among men; he is marked by a sign.