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

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.

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

As soon as sacrifice becomes a duty and necessity to mankind. I see no limit to the horizon which opens before him.

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.

Forgetfulness, and I would even say historical error, are essential in the creation of a nation.

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.