Life is a narrow vale between the cold and barren peaks of two eternities. We strive in vain to look beyond the heights. We cry aloud

Our ignorance is God; what we know is science. When we abandon the doctrine that some infinite being created matter and force, and enacted a code of laws for their government ... the real priest will then be, not the mouth-piece of some pretended deity, but the interpreter of nature.

Happiness is the only good. The time to be happy is now. The place to be happy is here. The way to be happy is to make others so.

In nature there are neither rewards nor punishments; there are consequences.

Nothing could be more dangerous to the existence of this Republic than to introduce religion into politics

Every cradle asks us, Whence? and every coffin, Whither? The poor barbarian, weeping above his dead, can answer these questions as intelligently as the robed priest of the most authentic creed.

Blasphemy is an epithet bestowed by superstition upon common sense.