In a world of cruelty, sympathy is a crime, and in a world of lies, truth is blasphemy.

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

He raised his hands, not to strike, but in benediction. Lincoln was the grandest figure of the fiercest civil war. He is the gentlest memory of our world.

Nothing could be more idiotic and absurd than the doctrine of the trinity.

Religion supports nobody. It has to be supported. It produces no wheat, no corn; it ploughs no land; it fells no forests. It is a perpetual mendicant. It lives on the labors of others, and then has the arrogance to pretend that it supports the giver.

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.

Temptations are as thick as the leaves of the forest, and no one can be out of the reach of temptation unless he is dead. The great thing is to make people intelligent enough and strong enough, not to keep away from temptation, but to resist it.