Scarcely anything that I observed in the United States caused me so much sorrow as the contemptuous estimate of the people entertained by those who were bowing the knee to be permitted to serve them.

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.

Religion is a temper, not a pursuit. It is the moral atmosphere in which human beings are to live and move. Men do not live to breathe: they breathe to live.

I want to be a free rover on the breezy common of the universe.

Self-denial is taught much better by inspiring the love of our neighbor, than by the prohibition of innocent comforts and pleasures. Spirituality is much better taught by making spiritual things the objects of supreme desire, than by commanding an ostentatious avoidance of the enjoyments of life.

Men who pass most comfortably through this world are those who possess good digestions and hard hearts.

In the United States, as elsewhere, there are, and have always been, two parties in politics ... It is remarkable how nearly their positive statements of political doctrine agree, while they differ in almost every possible application of their common principles.