Public Opinion, this invisible, intangible, omnipresent, despotic tyrant; this thousand-headed Hydra - the more dangerous for being composed of individual mediocrities...

Who is the great man? He who is strongest in patience. He who patiently endures injury, and maintains a blameless life--he is a man indeed!

Every one of the numberless religions and religious sects views the Deity after its own fashion; and, fathering on the unknown its own speculations, it enforces these purely human outgrowths of overheated imagination on the ignorant masses, and calls them "revelation." As the dogmas of every religion and sect often differ radically, they cannot be true. And if untrue, what are they?

Everything in the Universe, throughout all its kingdoms, is conscious: i.e., endowed with a consciousness of its own kind and on its own plane of perception.

People keep repeating that the main things are love and compassion. Certainly love and compassion are the main things, but it takes knowledge to make love and compassion fruitful. ... It takes just a second to say 'love'. But to acquire knowledge for the well-being and blessing of humanity requires an eternity.

Ridicule is the deadliest weapon of the age.

Civilization may progress, human nature will remain the same throughout all ages.