If we look into ourselves we discover propensities which declare that our intellects have arisen from a lower form; could our minds be made visible we should find them tailed.
William Winwood ReadeThe philosophic spirit of inquiry may be traced to brute curiosity, and that to the habit of examining all things in search of food. Artistic genius is an expansion of monkey imitativeness.
William Winwood ReadeA religion so cheerless, a philosophy so sorrowful, could never have succeeded with the masses of mankind if presented only as a system of metaphysics. Buddhism owed its success to its catholic spirit and its beautiful morality.
William Winwood ReadeOur enlightened posterity will look back upon us who eat oxen and sheep, just as we look upon cannibals.
William Winwood ReadeOne fact must be familiar to all those who have any experience of human nature - a sincerely religious man is often an exceedingly bad man.
William Winwood ReadeChristians believe themselves to be the aristocracy of heaven upon earth, they are admitted to the spiritual court, while millions of men in foreign lands have never been presented. They bow their knees and say they are 'miserable sinners,' and their hearts rankle with abominable pride. Poor infatuated fools! Their servility is real and their insolence is real but their king is a phantom and their palace is a dream.
William Winwood Reade