If you have ever clothed another with woe, as with a garment of pain, you will never be quite as happy as though you had not done that thing.

Small people delight in what they call consistency-that is, it gives them immense pleasure to say that they believe now exactly as they did ten years ago. This simply amounts to a certificate that they have not grown-that they have not developed-and that they know just as little now as they ever did. The highest possible conception of consistency is to be true to the knowledge of today, without the slightest reference to what your opinion was years ago.

He [The Improved Man] will enjoy not only the sunshine of life, but will bear with fortitude the darkest days. He will have no fear of death. About the grave, there will be no terrors, and his life will end as serenely as the sun rises.

Few nations have been so poor as to have but one god. Gods were made so easily, and the raw material cost so little, that generally the god market was fairly glutted and heaven crammed with these phantoms.

If priests had not been fond of mutton, lambs never would have been sacrified to god. Nothing was ever carried to the temple that the priest could not use, and it always happened that god wanted what his agents liked.

By physical liberty I mean the right to do anything which does not interfere with the happiness of another. By intellectual liberty I mean the right to think and the right to think wrong.

Arguments cannot be answered by personal abuse; there is no logic in slander, and falsehood, in the long run, defeats itself.