And why does this same God tell me how to raise my children when he had to drown his?
Give me the storm and tempest of thought and action, rather than the dead calm of ignorance and faith! Banish me from Eden when you will; but first let me eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge!
The religionist is a living fossil, embedded in that rock called faith.
Liberty a word without which all other words are vain.
So, ministers say that they teach charity. This is natural. They live on alms. All beggars teach that others should give.
The more a man knows, the more willing he is to learn. The less a man knows, the more positive he is that he knows everything…
I admit that reason is a small and feeble flame, a flickering torch by stumblers carried in the star-less night, — blown and flared by passion’s storm, — and yet, it is the only light. Extinguish that, and nought remains.
It is a thousand times better to have common sense without education than to have education without common sense.
Progress is born of doubt and inquiry. The Church never doubts, never inquires. To doubt is heresy, to inquire is to admit that you do not know—the Church does neither.
The glory of science is, that it is freeing the soul — breaking the mental manacles — getting the brain out of bondage — giving courage to thought — filling the world with mercy, justice, and joy.
No one infers a god from the simple, from the known, from what is understood, but from the complex, from the unknown, and incomprehensible. Our ignorance is God; what we know is science.
There are treasures in books that all the money in the world cannot buy, but the poorest laborer can have for nothing.
This is my doctrine: Give every other human being every right you claim for yourself.
In the republic of mediocrity, genius is dangerous.
There are in nature neither rewards nor punishments — there are consequences.
This is my doctrine: Give every other human being every right you claim for yourself. Keep your mind open to the influences of nature. Receive new thoughts with hospitality. Let us advance.
Music expresses feeling and thought, without language; it was below and before speech, and it is above and beyond all words.
Liberty sustains the same relation to mind that space does to matter.
Nothing could add to the horror of hell, except the presence of its creator, God. While I have life, as long as I draw breath, I shall deny with all my strength, and hate with every drop of my blood, this infinite lie.
No one can control his own opinion or his own belief. My belief was forced upon me by my surroundings. I am the product of all circumstances that have in any way touched me.
When you go home you ought to go like a ray of light—so that it will, even in the night, burst out of the doors and windows and illuminate the darkness.
Brain without heart is far more dangerous than heart withoutbrain.
Is it necessary that Heaven should borrow its light from the glare of
The hands that help are better far than lips that pray.
Who can over estimate the progress of the world if all the money wasted in superstition could be used to enlighten, elevate and civilize mankind?
To hate man and worship God seems to be the sum of all the creeds.
With every drop of my blood I hate and execrate every form of tyranny, every form of slavery. I hate dictation. I love liberty.
I swear that while I live I will do what little I can to preserve and to augment the liberties of man, woman, and
There is no slavery but ignorance. Liberty is the child of intelligence.
As more people become more intelligent they care less for preachers and more for teachers.
Injustice upon earth renders the justice of of heaven impossible.
Not one of the learned gentlemen who pretend that the Mosaic laws are filled with justice and intelligence, would live, for a moment, in any country where such laws were in force.
The destroyer of weeds, thistles, and thorns is a benefactor whether he soweth grain or not.
I am the inferior of any man whose rights I trample under foot. Men are not superior by reason of the accidents of race or color. They are superior who have the best heart — the best brain.
The man who does not do his own thinking is a slave, and is a traitor to himself and to his fellowmen.
What light is to the eyes – what air is to the lungs – what love is to the heart, liberty is to the soul of man.
With their backs to the sunrise they worship the night.
The theologians dead, knew no more than the theologians now living.
Whoever claims any right that he is unwilling to accord to his fellow-men is dishonest and infamous.
When all men give to all others all the rights they claim for themselves, this world will be civilized.
Every man should stand under the blue and stars, under the infinite flag of nature, the peer of every other man.
Arguments cannot be answered by personal abuse; there is no logic in slander, and falsehood, in the long run, defeats itself.
Happiness is the only good, reason the only torch, justice the only worship, humanity the only religion, and love the only priest.
He [Alexander von Humboldt] was to science what Shakespeare was to the drama.
Take from the church the miraculous, the supernatural, the incomprehensible, the unreasonable, the impossible, the unknowable, the absurd, and nothing but a vacuum remains.
It has always seemed absurd to suppose that a god would choose for his companions, during all eternity, the dear souls whose highest and only ambition is to obey.
The greatest test of courage on earth is to bear defeat without losing heart.
The greatest test of courage on earth is to bear defeat without losing heart.
One laugh of a child will make the holiest day more sacred still.
In the republic of mediocrity genius is dangerous.
My creed is that: Happiness is the only good. The place to be happy is here. The time to be happy is now. The way to be happy is to make others so.
Few rich men own their own property. Their property owns them.
I suppose it can be truthfully said that hope is the only universal liar who never loses his reputation for veracity.
Hope is the only bee that makes honey without flowers.
In the night of death hope sees a star and listening love can hear the rustle of a wing.
By physical liberty I mean the right to do anything which does not interfere with the happiness of another. By intellectual liberty I mean the right to think wrong.
The time to be happy is now. The place to be happy is here.
In nature there are neither rewards nor punishments – there are consequences.
In nature there are neither rewards or punishments-there are consequences.
Reason observation and experience – the Holy Trinity of Science.
The present is the necessary product of all the past the necessary cause of all the future.