Manly natural religion - it is not joining the Church; it is not to believe in a creed, Hebrew, Protestant, Catholic, Trinitarian, Unitarian, Nothingarian. It is not to keep Sunday idle; to attend meetings; to be wet with water; to read the Bible; to offer prayers in words; to take bread and wine in the meeting house; love a scape-goat Jesus, or any other theological clap-trap.

There is no intercessor, angel, mediator, between man and God; for man can speak and God hear, each for himself. He requires no advocates to plead for men.

Love of truth will bless the lover all his days; yet when he brings her home, his fair-faced bride, she comes empty-handed to his door, herself her only dower.

What a joy is there in a good book, writ by some great master of thought, who breaks into beauty as in summer the meadow into grass and dandelions and violets, with geraniums and manifold sweetness.

That which is called liberality is frequently nothing more than the vanity of giving.

All men need something to poetize and idealize their life a little-something which they value for more than its use, and which is a symbol of their emancipation from the mere materialism and drudgery of daily life.

Man never falls so low that he can see nothing higher than himself.