I would rather that we all should go to eternal chaos, to black and starless night, than that just one soul should suffer eternal agony.

Mental slavery is mental death, and every man who has given up his intellectual freedom is the living coffin of his dead soul.

Nothing discloses real character like the use of power.

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.

No man of sense in the whole world believes in devils any more than he does in mermaids, vampires, gorgons, hydras, naiads, dryads, nymphs, fairies, the Fountain of Youth, [or] the Philosopher's Stone. . . .

In the night of death, hope sees a star, and listening love can hear the rustle of a wing.

A believer is a bird in a cage, a freethinker is an eagle parting the clouds with tireless wing.