A believer is a bird in a cage, a freethinker is an eagle parting the clouds with tireless wing.

It is like most other ancient books - a mingling of falsehood and truth, of philosophy and folly - all written by men, and most of the men only partially civilized. Some of its laws are good - some infinitely barbarous. None of the miracles related were performed. . . . Take out the absurdities, the miracles, all that pertains to the supernatural - all the cruel and barbaric laws - and to the remainder I have no objection. Neither would I have for it any great admiration.

If the reason I give is a good one, you will act upon it. If it is a bad one I cannot make it better by piling epithet upon epithet. There is no logic in abuse; there is no argument in an epithet.

The falling leaf that tells of autumn's death is, in a subtler sense, a prophecy of spring.

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.

It seems to me that if there is some infinite being who wants us to think alike he would have made us alike.

Blasphemy is an epithet bestowed by superstition upon common sense.