It is the characteristic of privilege and of every privileged position to kill the mind and heart of men. The privileged man, whether practically or economically, is a man depraved in mind and heart.

All religions, with their gods, their demigods, and their prophets, their messiahs and their saints, were created by the credulous fancy of men who had not attained the full development and full possession of their faculties.

Religion is a collective insanity.

But I recognize no infallible authority, even in special questions; consequently, whatever respect I may have for the honesty and the sincerity of such or such an individual, I have no absolute faith in any person.

If you took the most ardent revolutionary, vested him in absolute power, within a year he would be worse than the Tsar himself.

The urge for destruction is also a creative urge!

Everything will pass, and the world will perish but the Ninth Symphony will remain.