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

Creationists use facts the same way a drunk uses a lightpost: for support instead of illumination

This is my creed: Happiness is the only good; reason the only torch; justice the only worship, humanity the only religion, and love the only priest.

Would God give a bird wings and make it a crime to fly? Would he give me brains and make it a crime to think? Any God that would damn one of his children for the expression of his honest thought wouldn't make a decent thief. When I read a book and don't believe it, I ought to say so. I will do so and take the consequences like a man.

If the money is raised by taxation, then the burden will fall where it ought to fall, . . . and the rich and stingy will no longer be able to evade the duties of citizenship and of humanity.

I believe in the religion of reason -- the gospel of this world; in the development of the mind, in the accumulation of intellectual wealth, to the end that man may free himself from superstitious fear, to the end that he may take advantage of the forces of nature to feed and clothe the world.

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