If there be an infinite Being, he does not need our help - we need not waste our energies in his defense.

If you have ever clothed another with woe, as with a garment of pain, you will never be quite as happy as though you had not done that thing.

I admit that reason is a small and feeble flame, a flickering torch by stumblers carried in the star-less night, - blown and flared by passion's storm, - and yet, it is the only light. Extinguish that, and nought remains.

It seems to me impossible for a civilized man to love or worship, or respect the God of the Old Testament. A really civilized man, a really civilized woman, must hold such a God in abhorrence and contempt.

It is hard to overstate the debt we owe to the men and women of genius.

There is no necessity for going to the church and hearing the same story forever. Let the minister write what he wishes to say. Let him publish it. If it is worth buying, people will read it. It is hardly fair to get them in a church in the name of duty and there inflict upon them a sermon that under no circumstances they would read...the idea of going fifty-two days in a year to hear anybody on the same subject is absurd.

What light is to the eyes - what air is to the lungs - what love is to the heart, liberty is to the soul of man.