Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
My objection to Christianity is that it is infinitely cruel, infinitely selfish, and, I might add, infinitely absurd.
There are treasures in books that all the money in the world cannot buy, but the poorest laborer can have for nothing.
It always has been and forever will be impossible for slavery or any kind or form of injustice to produce a great poet.
Until every soul is freely permitted to investigate every book and creed and dogma for itself, the world cannot be free.
Custom is a prison, locked and barred by those who long ago were dust, the keys of which are in the keeping of the dead.
Music was born of love. Had there never been any human affection, there never could have been uttered a strain of music.
A man is not moral because he is obedient through fear or ignorance. Morality lives in the realm of perceived obligation.
So, ministers say that they teach charity. This is natural. They live on alms. All beggars teach that others should give.
The meanest hut with love in it is a palace fit for the gods, and a palace without love is a den only fit for wild beasts.
If the people were a little more ignorant, astrology would flourish - if a little more enlightened, religion would perish.
How poor this world would be without its graves, without the memories of its mighty dead. Only the voiceless speak forever.
Let us account for all we see by the facts we know. If there are things for which we cannot account, let us wait for light.
Nothing is greater than to break the chains from the bodies of men, nothing nobler than to destroy the phantom of the soul.
Every flower about a house certifies to the refinement of somebody. Every vine climbing and blossoming tells of love and joy
There is more real devotional feeling summoned from the temple of the mind by great music than by any sermon ever delivered.
Music expresses feeling and thought, without language; it was below and before speech, and it is above and beyond all words.
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.
If matter cannot be destroyed, cannot be annihilated, it could not have been created. The indestructible must be uncreatable.
Arguments cannot be answered by personal abuse; there is no logic in slander, and falsehood, in the long run, defeats itself.
Mental slavery is mental death, and every man who has given up his intellectual freedom is the living coffin of his dead soul.
Our government should be entirely and purely secular. The religious views of a candidate should be kept entirely out of sight.
Taste and love are not the servants of the will. Love is and must be free. It rises from the heart like perfume from a flower.
The priests of one religion never credit the miracles of another religion. Is this because priests instinctively know priests?
A miracle is the badge and brand of fraud. ... No intelligent, honest man ever pretended to perform a miracle, and never will.
Superstition is, always has been, and forever will be, the foe of progress, the enemy of education and the assassin of freedom.
If Jehovah cannot support his religion without going into partnership with a State Legislature, I think he ought to give it up.
This crime called blasphemy was invented by priests for the purpose of defending doctrines not able to take care of themselves.
If the Bible and my brain are both the work of the same infinite God, whose fault is it that the book and my brain do not agree?
There is a quiet about the life of a farmer, and the hope of a serene old age, that no other business or profession can promise.
Shakespeare pursued the highway of the right. He did not seek to put his characters in a position where it was right to do wrong.
Happiness is the only good. The time to be happy is now. The place to be happy is here. The way to be happy is to make others so.
We need men with moral courage to speak and write their real thoughts, and to stand by their convictions, even to the very death.
Infidels in all ages have battled for the rights of man, and have at all times been the fearless advocates of liberty and justice.
The church hates a thinker precisely for the same reason a robber dislikes a sheriff, or a thief despises the prosecuting witness.
Not only are we here to protect the public from vicious criminals in the street but also to protect the public from harmful ideas.
Liberty is the condition of progress. Without Liberty, there remains only barbarism. Without Liberty, there can be no civilization.
Every sect is a certificate that God has not plainly revealed his will to man. To each reader the Bible conveys a different meaning.
In every age in which books have been produced, the governing class, the respectable, have been opposed to the works of real genius.
When the will defies fear, when duty throws the gauntlet down to fate, when honor scorns to compromise with death - that is heroism.
Good nature is the cheapest commodity in the world, and love is the only thing that will pay ten percent to both borrower and lender.
Life is a narrow vale between the cold and barren peaks of two eternities. We strive in vain to look beyond the heights. We cry aloud
The record of a generous life runs like a vine around the memory of our dead, and every sweet unselfish act is now a perfumed flower.
I read the other day an account of a meeting between John Knox and John Calvin. Imagine a dialogue between a pestilence and a famine!
It may be that ministers really think that their prayers do good, and it may be that frogs imagine that their croaking brings spring.
There can be goodness without much intelligence - but it seems to me that perfect intelligence and perfect goodness must go together.
It is a blessed thing that in every age some one has had the individuality enough and courage enough to stand by his own convictions.
The sacred books of all the world are worthless dross and common stones compared with Shakespeare's glittering gold and gleaming gems.
Good nature is the cheapest commodity in the world, and love is the only thing that will pay ten percent, to borrower and lender both.
Truth is the mother of joy. Truth civilizes, ennobles and purifies. The grandest ambition that can enter the soul is to know the truth.
They who gain applause and power by pandering to the mistakes, the prejudices and passions of the multitude are the enemies of liberty.