That which endures is not one or another association of living forms, but the process of which the cosmos is the product, and of which these are among the transitory expressions.

I took thought, and invented what I conceived to be the appropriate title of 'agnostic'.

The doctrine that all men are, in any sense, or have been, at any time, free and equal, is an utterly baseless fiction.

I would rather be the offspring of two apes than be a man and afraid to face the truth.

If the perpetual oscillation of nations between anarchy and despotism is to be replaced by the steady march of self-restraining freedom, it will be because men will gradually bring themselves to deal with political, as they now deal with scientific questions.

I know no study which is so unutterably saddening as that of the evolution of humanity, as it is set forth in the annals of history. Out of the darkness of prehistoric ages man emerges with the marks of his lowly origin strong upon him. He is a brute, only more intelligent than the other brutes, a blind prey to impulses, which as often as not led him to destruction; a victim to endless illusions, which make his mental existence a terror and a burden, and fill his physical life with barren toil and battle.

Every living creature commences its existence under a form different from, and simpler than, that which it eventually attains.