An injured friend is the bitterest of foes.
Difference of opinion leads to inquiry, and inquiry to the truth.
When you abandon freedom to achieve security, you lose both and deserve neither.
If by religion we are to understand sectarian dogmas, in which no two of them agree, then your exclamation on that hypothesis is just, "that this would be the best of worlds if there were no religion in it.
The Giver of life gave it for happiness and not for wretchedness.
The time to guard against corruption and tyranny is before they shall have gotten hold of us. It is better to keep the wolf out of the fold, than to trust to drawing his teeth and talons after he shall have entered.