... the yearly expenses of the existing religious systemexceed in these United States twenty millions of dollars. Twenty millions! For teaching what? Things unseen and causes unknown!... Twenty millions would more than suffice to make us wise; and alas! do they not more than suffice to make us foolish?

I shall say, that I feel myself virtuous, because my soul is at rest.

Equality is the soul of liberty; there is, in fact, no liberty without it.

Persecution for opinion is the master vice of society.

The existing principle of selfish interest and competition has been carried to its extreme point; and, in its progress, has isolated the heart of man, blunted the edge of his finest sensibilities, and annihilated all his most generous impulses and sympathies.

The knowledge of one generation is the ignorance of the next.

The world is full of religion, and full of misery and crime.