Give me the storm and tempest of thought and action, rather than the dead calm of ignorance and faith! Banish me from Eden when you will; but first let me eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge!

It may be that ministers really think that their prayers do good, and it may be that frogs imagine that their croaking brings spring.

He who commends the brutalities of the past, sows the seeds of future crimes.

The good part of Christmas is not always Christian -- it is generally Pagan; that is to say, human, natural.

There is only one way to be happy, and that is to make somebody else so, and you cannot be happy by going cross lots; you have got to go the regular turnpike road.

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

To give up your individuality is to annihilate yourself.