No man with a sense of humor ever founded a religion.
Religion is one of the phases of thought through which the world is passing.
We do not need the forgiveness of God, but of each other and of ourselves.
All I have to say is, Love one another – that is the height of all philosophy. It is beyond all religions. It is the secret of joy – the fountain of Perpetual Youth – the only rainbow on life’s dark cloud.
The priests of one religion never credit the miracles of another religion. Is this because priests instinctively know priests?
It is hard for many people to give up the religion in which they were born; to admit that their fathers were utterly mistaken, and that the sacred records of their country are but collections of myths and fables.
It seems to me impossible for a civilized man to love or worship, or respect the God of the Old Testament. A really civilized man, a really civilized woman, must hold such a God in abhorrence and contempt.
Argument cannot be answered with insults. Kindness is strength; anger blows out the lamp of the mind.
Fear is religion, courage is science.
A believer is a bird in a cage, a freethinker is an eagle parting the clouds with tireless wing.
If there is one subject in this world worthy of being discussed, worthy of being understood, it is the question of intellectual liberty. Without that, we are simply painted clay.
The clergy know that I know that they know that they do not know.
An infinite God ought to be able to protect himself, without going in partnership with State Legislatures. Certainly he ought not so to act that laws become necessary to keep him from being laughed at. No one thinks of protecting Shakespeare from ridicule, by the threat of fine and imprisonment.
No one infers a god from the simple, from the known, from what is understood, but from the complex, from the unknown, and incomprehensible. Our ignorance is God; what we know is science.
As more people become more intelligent they care less for preachers and more for teachers.
The more liberty you give away the more you will have.
If nobody has too much, everybody will have enough.
Love is natural. Back of allceremony burns and will forever burn the sacred flame. There has been no time in the world’s history when that torch was extinguished. In all ages, in all climes, among all people, there has been true, pure, and unselfish love.
A mule has neither pride of ancestry nor hope of posterity.
Few rich men own their property; their property owns them.