Must love be ever treated with profaneness as a mere illusion? or with coarseness as a mere impulse? or with fear as a mere disease? or with shame as a mere weakness? or with levity as a mere accident? whereas it is a great mystery and a great necessity, lying at the foundation of human existence, morality, and happiness,--mysterious, universal, inevitable as death.

The last thing it [government] ought to do is to ground its proceedings on the ignorance of the people, - to yield them that which they will hereafter despise the donors for granting them.

Goodness and simplicity are indissolubly united.-The bad are the most sophisticated, all the world over, and the good the least.

I have no sympathy for those who, under any pressure of circumstances, sacrifice their heart's-love for legal prostitution.

It is hard to tell which is worse; the wide diffusion of things that are not true, or the suppression of things that are true.

As the astronomer rejoices in new knowledge which compels him to give up the dignity of our globe as the centre, the pride, and even the final cause of the universe, so do those who have escaped from the Christian mythology enjoy their release from the superstition which fails to make them happy, fails to make them good, fails to make them wise, and has become as great an obstacle in the way of progress as the prior mythologies which it took the place of two thousand years ago.

I loved, as I still love, the most monotonous life possible.