I have had some trouble in regarding evil as having been intended by infinite Goodness.

The idea that there is a God who rewards and punishes, and who can reward, if he so wishes, the meanest and vilest of the human race, so that he will be eternally happy, and can punish the best of the human race, so that he will be eternally miserable, is subversive of all morality.

Ignorance worships mystery; reason explains it; the one grovels, the other soars.

With their backs to the sunrise they worship the night.

If Jehovah cannot support his religion without going into partnership with a State Legislature, I think he ought to give it up.

No man has a right to leave his wife to fight the battle alone if he is able to help. No man has a right to desert his children if he can possibly be of use. As long as he can add to the comfort of those he loves, as long as he can . . . be of any use, it is his duty to remain.

Belief is not a matter of choice, but of conviction.