Good humor is a philosophic state of mind; it seems to say to nature that we take her no more seriously than she takes us.

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.

To have common glories in the past, a common will in the present; to have done great things together, to will to do the like again, — such are the essential conditions for the making of a people.

Religion is not a popular error; it is a great instinctive truth, sensed by the people, expressed by the people.

Human cruelty took the form of a pact with the deity. A solemn oath was made to kill everything, in which people forbade themselves any display of reason or compassion. A city or a land was devoted to destruction and it was believed an insult to God if one did not observe the abominable oath.

When people complain of life, it is almost always because they have asked impossible things of it.

Sometimes they reasoned thus: "The Messiah ought to do such a thing, now Jesus is the Messiah, therefore Jesus has done such a thing." At other times, by an inverse process, it was said: "Such a thing has happened to Jesus; now Jesus is the Messiah; therefore such a thing was to happen to the Messiah."