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!

It is singular to look round upon a country where the dreams of sages, smiled at as utopian, seem distinctly realized, a people voluntarily submitting to laws of their own imposing, with arms in their hands respecting the voice of a government which their breath created and which their breath could in a moment destroy!

it is not that religion is merely useless, it is mischievous. It is mischievous by its idle terrors; it is mischievous by its false morality; it is mischievous by its hypocrisy; by its fanaticism; by its dogmatism; by its threats; by its hopes; by its promises.

the mode of delivering a truth makes, for the most part, as much impression on the mind of the listener as the truth itself.

The condition of women affords in all countries the best criterion by which to judge the character of men.

... the happiness of a people is the only rational object of government, and the only object for which a people, free to choose, can have a government at all.

It is in vain that we would circumscribe the power of one half of our race, and that half by far the most important and influential.