Lincoln was not a type. He stands alone – no ancestors, no fellows, no successors.
Every creed is a rock in running water: humanity sweeps by it. Every creed cries to the universe, “Halt!” A creed is the ignorant Past bulling the enlightened Present.
Memory is the miser of the mind; forgetfulness the spendthrift.
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.
Whoever saw an angel barefooted?
It is hard to overstate the debt that we owe to men and women of genius.
Hope is the consolation of the world.
Sometime, it will be found that people can be changed only by changing their surroundings. It is alleged that, at least ninety-five percent of the criminals transported from England to Australia and other penal colonies, became good and useful citizens in a new world.
Give any orthodox church the power, and to-day they would punish heresy with whip, and chain, and fire. As long as a church deems a certain belief essential to salvation, just so long it will kill and burn if it has the power.
Language is not subtle enough, tender enough, to express all that we feel; and when language fails, the highest and deepest longings are translated into music. Music is the sunshine – the climate – of the soul, and it floods the heart with a perfect June.
I would rather that we all should go to eternal chaos, to black and starless night, than that just one soul should suffer eternal agony.
There is more real devotional feeling summoned from the temple of the mind by great music than by any sermon ever delivered.
The only reason why we wish to exchange thoughts is that we are different. If we were all the same, we would die dumb. No thought would be expressed after we found that our thoughts were precisely alike. We differ-our thoughts are different. Therefore the commerse that we call conversation.
Joy is wealth and love is the legal tender of the soul.
The good part of Christmas is not always Christian – it is generally Pagan; that is to say, human, natural.
An honest God is the noblest work of man.
Death is only perfect rest.
Diderot took the ground that, if orthodox religion be true Christ was guilty of suicide. Having the power to defend himself he should have used it.
Character survives; goodness lives; love is immortal.
The most important thing in this world is liberty. More important than food or clothes – more important than gold or houses or lands – more important than art or science – more important than all religions, is the liberty of man.