I don't want to hurt people's feelings if I can help it. I don't want anyone unnecessarily humiliated, but I say whatever stands between you and justice must give way; and if you have to walk over reputations — and if they become pavement you cannot help it.

But honest men do not pretend to know; they are candid and sincere; they love the truth; they admit their ignorance, and they say, We do not know.

Let us account for all we see by the facts we know. If there are things for which we cannot account, let us wait for light. To account for anything by supernatural agencies is, in fact to say that we do not know. Theology is not what we know about God, but what we do not know about Nature.

I know of no crime that has not been defended by the church, in one form or other. The church is not a pioneer; it accepts a new truth, last of all, and only when denial has become useless.

To give up your individuality is to annihilate yourself.

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.

I will not attack your doctrines nor your creeds if they accord liberty to me. If they hold thought to be dangerous - if they aver that doubt is a crime, then I attack them one and all, because they enslave the minds of men.