Good fiction doesn't come out of the basic conflict of good versus bad. Instead, it comes out of a conflict between good and good.

The idea shared by many that life is a vale of tears is just as false as the idea shared by the great majority, the idea to which youth and health and riches incline you, that life is a place of entertainment.

Freethinkers are those who are willing to use their minds without prejudice and without fearing to understand things that clash with their own customs, privileges, or beliefs. This state of mind is not common, but it is essential for right thinking.

It is not beauty that endears, it's love that makes us see beauty.

The simplest and shortest ethical precept is to be served as little as possible . . . and to serve others as much as possible.

There will be today, there will be tomorrow, there will be always, and there was yesterday, and there was the day before.

Are we not all flung into the world for no other purpose than to hate each other, and so to torture ourselves and one another?