... we have broken down the self-respecting spirit of man with nursery tales and priestly threats, and we dare to assert, that inproportion as we have prostrated our understanding and degraded our nature, we have exhibited virtue, wisdom, and happiness, in our words, our actions, and our lives!

These will vary in every human being; but knowledge is the same for every mind, and every mind may and ought to be trained to receive it.

The man possessed of a dollar, feels himself to be not merely one hundred cents richer, but also one hundred cents better, than the man who is penniless; so on through all the gradations of earthly possessions - the estimate of our own moral and political importance swelling always in a ratio exactly proportionate to the growth of our purse.

the leading error of the human mind, - the bane of human happiness - the perverter of human virtue ... is Religion - that dark coinage of trembling ignorance! It is Religion - that poisoner of human felicity! It is Religion - that blind guide of human reason! It is Religion - that dethroner of human virtue! which lies at the root of all the evil and all the misery that pervade the world!

The best road to correct reasoning is by physical science; the way to trace effects to causes is through physical science; the only corrective, therefore, of superstition is physical science.

Instead of establishing facts, we have to overthrow errors; instead of ascertaining what is, we have to chase from our imaginations what is not.

Moral truth, resting entirely upon the ascertained consequences of actions, supposes a process of observation and reasoning.