Happiness is not a reward - it is a consequence. Suffering is not a punishment - it is a result.

I love to think of the whole universe together as one eternal fact. I love to think that everything is alive; that crystallization is itself a step toward joy. I love to think that when a bud bursts into blossom: it feels a thrill. I love to have the universe full of feeling and full of joy, and not full of simple dead, inert matter, managed by an old bachelor for all eternity.

A miracle is the badge and brand of fraud. ... No intelligent, honest man ever pretended to perform a miracle, and never will.

Give any orthodox church the power, and to-day they would punish heresy with whip, and chain, and fire. As long as a church deems a certain belief essential to salvation, just so long it will kill and burn if it has the power.

I would have all the professors in colleges, all the teachers in schools of every kind, including those in Sunday schools, agree that they would teach only what they know, that they would not palm off guesses as demonstrated truths.

Joy is wealth and love is the legal tender of the soul.

It is told that the great Angelo, in decorating a church, painted some angels wearing sandals. A cardinal looking at the picture said to the artist: Whoever saw angels with sandals? Angelo answered with another question: Whoever saw an angel barefooted?