Justice, poised and balanced in eternal calm, will shake from the golden scales in which are weighed the acts of men, the very dust of prejudice and caste: No race, no color, no previous condition, can change the rights of men.
Martyrdom, as a rule, establishes the sincerity of the martyr, never the correctness of his thought. Things are true or false in themselves.
The emblem of equal rights. It means free hands, free lips, self- government, and the sovereignty of the individual.
I do not believe in loving enemies; I have pretty hard work to love my friends.
I have had some trouble in regarding evil as having been intended by infinite Goodness.
If there is a God, there should be no slaves.
I have no confidence in any religion that can be demonstrated only to children.
To me, the most obscene word in our language is celibacy.
An infinite personality is an infinite impossibility.
Think of the egotism of a man who believes that an infinite being wants his praise!
If we are immortal, it is a fact of nature, and that fact does not depend on bibles, on Christs, priest, or creeds.
If this religion is true, then there is only one Savior, only one narrow path to life. Christianity cannot live in peace with any other religion.
Now the struggle for life is so sharp, competition is so severe, that few men can succeed who carry a useless burden. The businessmen of our country are compelled to lead temperate lives, otherwise their credit is gone.
The whip degrades; a severe father teaches his children to dissemble; their love is pretense, and their obedience a species of self-defense. Fear is the father of lies.
It is impossible for me to conceive of a character more utterly detestable than that of the Hebrew god.
The history of the world shows that when a mean thing was done, man did it; when a good thing was done, man did it.
The savage prays to a stone that he calls a god, while the Christian prays to a god he calls a spirit, and the prayers of both are equally useful.
Do not trust those in whom the compulsion to punish is strong.
Spirituality for the most part is a mask worn by idleness, arrogance and greed.
If there be an infinite Being, he does not need our help – we need not waste our energies in his defense.