I believe that labor is a blessing. It never was and never will be a curse. It is a blessed thing to labor for . . . the ones you love. It is a blessed thing to have an object in life - something to do - something to call into play your best thoughts, to develop your faculties and to make you a man.

It is told that the great Angelo, in decorating a church, painted some angels wearing sandals. A cardinal looking at the picture said to the artist: Whoever saw angels with sandals? Angelo answered with another question: Whoever saw an angel barefooted?

For the first time I understood the dogma of eternal pain... For the first time my imagination grasped the height and depth of the Christian horror. Then I said: "It is a lie, and I hate your religion. If it is true, I hate your God." From that day I have had no fear, no doubt. For me, on that day, the flames of hell were quenched. From that day I have passionately hated every orthodox creed. That Sermon did some good.

Reason, observation, and experience; the holy trinity of science.

Martyrdom, as a rule, establishes the sincerity of the martyr, never the correctness of his thought. Things are true or false in themselves.

Jehovah was not a moral god. He had all the vices and he lacked all the virtues. He generally carried out all his threats, but he never faithfully kept a promise.

Fear paints pictures of ghosts and hangs them in the gallery of ignorance.