Men will wrangle for religion, write for it, fight for it, die for it; anything but live for it.
We are not more ingenious in searching out bad motives for good actions when performed by others, than good motives for bad actions when performed by ourselves.
Precisely in proportion to our own intellectual weakness will be our credulity as to those mysterious powers assumed by others.
He that dies a martyr proves that he was not a knave, but by no means that he was not a fool.
Sir Richard Steele has observed, that there is this difference between the Church of Rome and the Church of England: the one professes to be infallible, the other to be never in the wrong.
There is one passage in the Scriptures to which all the potentates of Europe seem to have given their unanimous assent and approbation...."There went out a decree in the days of Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed."
Atheism is a system which can communicate neither warmth nor illumination, except from those fagots which your mistaken zeal has lighted up for its destruction.
The three great apostles of practical atheism, that make converts without persecuting, and retain them without preaching, are wealth, health and power.
The truly great consider, first, how they may gain the approbation of God, and, secondly, that of their own conscience. Having done this, they would then willingly conciliate the good opinion of their fellow-men. But the truly little reverse the thing. The primary object with them is to secure the applause of their fellow-men; and having effected this, the approbation of God and their own conscience may follow on as they can.
Pure truth, like pure gold, has been found unfit for circulation because men have discovered that it is far more convenient to adulterate the truth than to refine themselves.
Some reputed saints that have been canonized ought to have been cannonaded.
There are only two things in which the false professors of all religions have agreed--to persecute all other sects and to plunder their own.
Follow AzQuotes on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. Every day we present the best quotes! Improve yourself, find your inspiration, share with friends
or simply: