What a state of society is this in which freethinker is a term of abuse, and in which doubt is regarded as sin?

To cultivate the intellect is therefore a religious duty; and when this truth is fairly recognized by men, the religion which teaches that the intellect should be distrusted and that it should be subservient to faith, will inevitably fall.

A 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.

Men prefer to believe that they are degenerated angels, rather than elevated apes.

One fact must be familiar to all those who have any experience of human nature - a sincerely religious man is often an exceedingly bad man.

Artistic genius is an expansion of monkey imitativeness.

Doubt is the offspring of knowledge: the savage never doubts at all.