Every creed is a rock in running water: humanity sweeps by it. Every creed cries to the universe, "Halt!" A creed is the ignorant Past bulling the enlightened Present.

When I became convinced that the universe is natural, that all the ghosts and gods are myths, there entered into my brain, into my soul, into every drop of my blood the sense, the feeling, the joy of freedom. The walls of my prison crumbled and fell. The dungeon was flooded with light and all the bolts and bars and manacles became dust.

In a world of cruelty, sympathy is a crime, and in a world of lies, truth is blasphemy.

Sacred are the lips from which has issued only truth.

It cannot be too often repeated, that truth scorns the assistance of miracle.

We have at last ascertained that miracles can be perfectly understood; that there is nothing mysterious about them; that they are simply transparent falsehoods.

We must remember that we have to make judges out of men, and that by being made judges their prejudices are not diminished and their intelligence is not increased.