love make us poets, and the approach of death should make us philosophers.

The human mind is not rich enough to drive many horses abreast and wants one general scheme, under which it strives to bring everything.

Eternal vigilance is the price of knowledge.

The working of great institutions is mainly the result of a vast mass of routine, petty malice, self interest, carelessness and sheer mistake. Only a residual fraction is thought.

Christianity persecuted, tortured, and burned. Like a hound it tracked the very scent of heresy. It kindled wars, and nursed furious hatreds and ambitions. It sanctified, quite like Mohammedism, extermination and tyranny. All this would have been impossible if, like Buddhism, it had looked only for peace and the liberation of souls. It looked beyond; it dreamt of infinite blisses and crowns it should be crowned with before an electrified universe and an applauding God... Buddhism had tried to quiet a sick world with anesthetics; Christianity sought to purge it with fire.

When all beliefs are challenged together, the just and necessary ones have a chance to step forward and re-establish themselves alone.

Religion is the love of life in the consciousness of impotence.