Eternal punishment must be eternal cruelty, and I do not see how any man, unless he has the brain of an idiot, or the heart of a wild beast, can believe in eternal punishment.

The combined wisdom and genius of all mankind cannot possibly conceive of an argument against liberty of thought.

Religion has not civilized man, man has civilized religion.

The Catholic Church is a thousand times better than your Protestant Church upon that question [of damnation]. The Catholic Church believes in purgatory - that is, a place where a fellow can get a chance to make a motion for a new trial.

If we admit that some infinite being has controlled the destinies of persons and peoples, history becomes a most cruel and bloody farce.

It is a thousand times better to have common sense without education than to have education without common sense.

Is not the history of real civilization the slow and gradual emancipation of the intellect, of the judgment, from the mastery of passion? Is not that man civilized whose reason sits the crowned monarch of his brain - whose passions are his servants?