The real searcher after truth will not receive the old because it is old, or reject the new because it is new. He will not believe men because they are dead, or contradict them because they are alive. With him an utterance is worth the truth, the reason it contains, without the slightest regard to the author. He may have been a king or serf - a philosopher or servant, - but the utterance neither gains nor loses in truth or reason. Its value is absolutely independent of the fame or station of the man who gave it to the world.

In nature there are neither rewards nor punishments; there are consequences.

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

Prayer is of no avail. The lightning falls on the just and the unjust in accordance with natural laws.

They who stand with breaking hearts around this little grave, need have no fear. The larger and the nobler faith in all that is, and is to be, tells us that death, even at its worst, is only perfect rest ... The dead do not suffer.

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.

So, ministers say that they teach charity. This is natural. They live on alms. All beggars teach that others should give.