The man who does not do his own thinking is a slave, and is a traitor to himself and to his fellow-men.

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

If the Bible and my brain are both the work of the same infinite God, whose fault is it that the book and my brain do not agree?

The man who does not do his own thinking is a slave, and is a traitor to himself and to his fellow-men.

Christianity has such a contemptible opinion of human nature that it does not believe a man can tell the truth unless frightened by a belief in god. No lower opinion of the human race has ever been expressed.

I belong to the Great Church which holds the world within its starlit aisles; that claims the great and good of every race and clime; that finds with joy the grain of gold in every creed, and floods with light and love the germs of good in every soul.

When I became convinced that the universe is natural, that all the ghosts and gods are myths, there entered into my brain, into my soul, into every drop of my blood the sense, the feeling, the joy of freedom. The walls of my prison crumbled and fell. The dungeon was flooded with light and all the bolts and bars and manacles became dust.