Let us put theology out of religion. Theology has always sent the worst to heaven, the best to hell.
Every man who expresses an honest thought is a soldier in the army of intellectual liberty.
I believe that there is something far nobler than loyalty to any particular man. Loyalty to the truth as we perceive it - loyalty to our duty as we know it - loyalty to the ideals of our brain and heart - is, to my mind, far greater and far nobler than loyalty to the life of any particular man or God. . . .
Only a few years ago there was no person too ignorant to successfully answer Charles Darwin; and the more ignorant he was the more cheerfully he undertook the task.
The greatest superstition now entertained by public men is that hypocrisy is the royal road to success.
Love your friends and be just to your enemies.
When a fact can be demonstrated, force is unnecessary; when it cannot be demonstrated, force is infamous.
Logic is not satisfied with assertion. It cares nothing for the opinions of the great; nothing for the prejudices of the many, and least of all for the superstitions of the dead.
For the first time I understood the dogma of eternal pain... For the first time my imagination grasped the height and depth of the Christian horror. Then I said: "It is a lie, and I hate your religion. If it is true, I hate your God." From that day I have had no fear, no doubt. For me, on that day, the flames of hell were quenched. From that day I have passionately hated every orthodox creed. That Sermon did some good.
Every flower about a house certifies to the refinement of somebody. Every vine climbing and blossoming tells of love and joy
The destroyer of weeds, thistles, and thorns is a benefactor whether he soweth grain or not.
I am anxious to give away information, for it is only by giving it away that you can keep it. When you have told it, you remember it. It is with information as it is with liberty, the only way to be dead sure of it is to give it to other people.
Lincoln was not a type. He stands alone - no ancestors, no fellows, no successors.
Music expresses feeling and thought, without language; it was below and before speech, and it is above and beyond all words.
There is no necessity for going to the church and hearing the same story forever. Let the minister write what he wishes to say. Let him publish it. If it is worth buying, people will read it. It is hardly fair to get them in a church in the name of duty and there inflict upon them a sermon that under no circumstances they would read...the idea of going fifty-two days in a year to hear anybody on the same subject is absurd.
He raised his hands, not to strike, but in benediction. Lincoln was the grandest figure of the fiercest civil war. He is the gentlest memory of our world.
The moment you introduce a despotism in the world of thought, you succeed in making hypocrites - and you get in such a position that you never know what your neighbor thinks.
If the money is raised by taxation, then the burden will fall where it ought to fall, . . . and the rich and stingy will no longer be able to evade the duties of citizenship and of humanity.
Years should not be devoted to the acquisition of dead languages or to the study of history which, for the most part, is a detailed account of things that never occurred. It is useless to fill the individual with dates of great battles, with the births and deaths of kings. They should be taught the philosophy of history, the growth of nations, of philosophies, theories, and, above all, of the sciences.
Wait until the world is free before you write a creed. In this creed there will be but one word -- Liberty.
If God objected to [people with various handicaps], he ought not have created such people.
With their backs to the sunrise they worship the night.
If we admit that some infinite being has controlled the destinies of persons and peoples, history becomes a most cruel and bloody farce.
I admit that books were voted in and out, and that the Bible was finally formed in accordance with a vote.
A good deed is the best prayer.
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