Ghost stories are always listened to and well received in private, but pitilessly disavowed in public. For my own part, ignorant as I am of the way in which the human spirit enters the world and the way in which he goes out of it, I dare not deny the truth of many such narratives.

A society that is not willing to demand a life of somebody who has taken somebody else’s life is simply immoral.

The existence of the Bible is the greatest blessing which humanity ever experienced.

There is something splendid about innocence; but what is bad about it, in turn, is that it cannot protect itself very well and is easily seduced.

Honesty is better than any policy.

. . . as to moral feeling, this supposed special sense, the appeal to it is indeed superficial when those who cannot think believe that feeling will help them out, even in what concerns general laws: and besides, feelings which naturally differ infinitely in degree cannot furnish a uniform standard of good and evil, nor has any one a right to form judgments for others by his own feelings. . . .

I am myself by inclination an investigator.