Every library is an arsenal.
I belong to the Great Church which holds the world within its starlit aisles; that claims the great and good of every race and clime; that finds with joy the grain of gold in every creed, and floods with light and love the germs of good in every soul.
If you have ever clothed another with woe, as with a garment of pain, you will never be quite as happy as though you had not done that thing.
Injustice upon earth renders the justice of of heaven impossible.
The combined wisdom and genius of all mankind cannot possibly conceive of an argument against liberty of thought.
Liberty is the condition of progress. Without Liberty, there remains only barbarism. Without Liberty, there can be no civilization.
It is with men as with other things. The mullein needs only a year, but the oak a century, and the greatest men are those who have continued to grow as long as they have lived.
When a fact can be demonstrated, force is unnecessary; when it cannot be demonstrated, force is infamous.
Every sect is a certificate that God has not plainly revealed his will to man. To each reader the Bible conveys a different meaning.
Above all things, one should maintain his self-respect, and there is but one way to do that, and that is to live in accordance with your highest ideal.
If the property belongs to God he is able to pay the tax.
As long as woman regards the Bible as the charter of her rights, she will be the slave of man. The bible was not written by a woman. Within its leaves there is nothing but humiliation and shame for her.
Wait until the world is free before you write a creed. In this creed there will be but one word – Liberty.
Liberty cannot be sacrificed for the sake of temperance, for the sake of morality, or for the sake of anything. It is of more value than everything. Yet some people would destroy the sun to prevent the growth of weeds. Liberty sustains the same relation to all the virtues that the sun does to life.
Great virtues may draw attention from defects, they cannot sanctify them. A pebble surrounded by diamonds remains a common stone, and a diamond surrounded by pebbles is still a gem.
I admit that books were voted in and out, and that the Bible was finally formed in accordance with a vote.
If we have the right to use our reason, we certainly have the right to act in accordance with it, and no god can have the right to punish us for such action.
It is incredible that only idiots are absolutely sure of salvation. It is incredible that the more brain you have the less your chance is. There can be no danger in honest thought, and if the world ever advances beyond what it is to-day, it must be led by men who express their real opinions.
If the Bible is true, it needs no inspiration, and – if not true, inspiration can do it no good.
The credulity of the church is decreasing, and the most marvelous miracles are not either ‘explained,’ or allowed to take refuge behind the mistakes of the translators, or hide in the drapery of allegory.