There is the same difference between talent and genius that there is between a stone mason and a sculptor

I don't want to hurt people's feelings if I can help it. I don't want anyone unnecessarily humiliated, but I say whatever stands between you and justice must give way; and if you have to walk over reputations — and if they become pavement you cannot help it.

In the republic of mediocrity, genius is dangerous.

To know that the Bible is the literature of a barbarous people, to know that it is uninspired, to be certain that the supernatural does not and cannot exist - all this is but the beginning of wisdom.

I belong to the Great Church which holds the world within its starlit aisles; that claims the great and good of every race and clime; that finds with joy the grain of gold in every creed, and floods with light and love the germs of good in every soul.

Progress is born of doubt and inquiry. The Church never doubts, never inquires. To doubt is heresy, to inquire is to admit that you do not know—the Church does neither.

We must remember that there is a great difference between a myth and a miracle. A myth is the idealization of a fact. A miracle is the counterfeit of a fact. There is the same difference between a myth and a miracle that there is between fiction and falsehood -- between poetry and perjury. Miracles belong to the far past and the far future. The little line of sand, called the present, between the seas, belongs to common sense to the natural.