What religion a man shall have is a historical accident, quite as much as what language he shall speak.

Religions are the great fairy tales of conscience.

Faith in the supernatural is a desperate wager made by man at the lowest ebb of his fortunes.

To me, it seems a dreadful indignity to have a soul controlled by geography.

America is a young country with an old mentality.

Not to believe in love is a great sign of dullness. There are some people so indirect and lumbering that they think all real affection rests on circumstantial evidence.

By "essence" I understand a universal, of any degree of complexity and definition, which may be given immediately, whether to sense or to thought.... This object of pure sense or pure thought, with no belief superadded, an object inwardly complete and individual, but without external relations or physical status, is what I call an essence.