Every child should be taught that useful work is worship and that intelligent labor is the highest form of prayer.

There is in all artists a little of the vagabond.

Years should not be devoted to the acquisition of dead languages or to the study of history which, for the most part, is a detailed account of things that never occurred. It is useless to fill the individual with dates of great battles, with the births and deaths of kings. They should be taught the philosophy of history, the growth of nations, of philosophies, theories, and, above all, of the sciences.

The ministers are in duty bound to denounce all intellectual pride, and show that we are never quite so dear to God as when we admit that we are poor, corrupt and idiotic worms; that we never should have been born; that we ought to be damned without the least delay.... The old creed is still taught. They still insist that God is infinitely wise, powerful and good, and that all men are totally depraved. They insist that the best man god ever made, deserved to be damned the moment he was finished.

All religions are inconsistent with mental freedom. Shakespeare is my bible, Burns my hymn-book.

There is no evidence that God ever interfered in the affairs of man. The hand of earth is stretched uselessly towards heaven. From the clouds there comes no help.

If there be gods we cannot help them, but we can assist our fellow men. We cannot love the inconceivable, but we can love wife and child and friend.