I have no confidence in any religion that can be demonstrated only to children.

The present is the necessary product of all the past, the necessary cause of all the future.

The whip degrades; a severe father teaches his children to dissemble; their love is pretense, and their obedience a species of self-defense. Fear is the father of lies.

To the wise man, to the wise nation, the mistakes of the past are the torches of the present.

Intelligence is the only moral guide.

The Catholics have a Pope. Protestants laugh at them, and yet the Pope is capable of intellectual advancement. In addition to this, the Pope is mortal, and the church cannot be afflicted with the same idiot forever. The Protestants have a book for their Pope. The book cannot advance. Year after year, and century after century, the book remains as ignorant as ever.

In making up my mind as to what Mr. Lincoln really believed, I do not take into consideration the evidence of unnamed persons or the contents of anonymous letters; I take the testimony of those who knew and loved him, of those to whom he opened his heart and to whom he spoke in the freedom of perfect confidence.