"This is my doctrine: Give every other human being every right you claim for yourself."

"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."

"The doctrine that future happiness depends upon belief is monstrous. It is the infamy of infamies. The notion that faith in Christ is to be rewarded by an eternity of bliss, while a dependence upon reason, observation and experience merits everlasting pain, is too absurd for refutation, and can be relieved only by that unhappy mixture of insanity and ignorance, called 'faith."

"I suppose it can be truthfully said that hope is the only universal liar who never loses his reputation for veracity."

"We must remember that there is a great difference between a myth and a miracle. A myth is the idealization of a fact. A miracle is the counterfeit of a fact. There is the same difference between a myth and a miracle that there is between fiction and falsehood -- between poetry and perjury. Miracles belong to the far past and the far future. The little line of sand, called the present, between the seas, belongs to common sense to the natural."

"What light is to the eyes - what air is to the lungs - what love is to the heart, liberty is to the soul of man."

"Is it necessary that Heaven should borrow its light from the glare of Hell? Infinite punishment is infinite cruelty, endless injustice, immortal meanness. To worship an eternal gaoler hardens, debases, and pollutes even the vilest soul. While there is one sad and breaking heart in the universe, no good being can be perfectly happy."

"Let us put theology out of religion. Theology has always sent the worst to heaven, the best to hell."

"The present is the necessary product of all the past the necessary cause of all the future."

"With their backs to the sunrise they worship the night."

"Justice is the only worship.Love is the only priest.Ignorance is the only slavery.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.Wisdom is the science of happiness."

"Anger is a wind which blows out the lamp of the mind."

"Reason observation and experience - the Holy Trinity of Science."

"One laugh of a child will make the holiest day more sacred still."

"If a man would follow, today, the teachings of the Old Testament, he would be a criminal. If he would follow strictly the teachings of the New, he would be insane."

"The telescope destroyed the firmament, did away with the heaven of the New Testament, rendered the ascension of our Lord and the assumption of his Mother infinitely absurd, crumbled to chaos the gates and palaces of the New Jerusalem, and in their places gave to man a wilderness of worlds."

"What is it that distinguishes you and me from the lower animals - from the beasts? More, I say, than anything else, human sympathy - human sympathy."

"One great objection to the Old Testament is the cruelty said to have been commanded by God. All these cruelties ceased with death. The vengeance of Jehovah stopped at the tomb. He never threatened to punish the dead; and there is not one word, from the first mistake in Genesis to the last curse of Malachi, containing the slightest intimation that God will take his revenge in another world. It was reserved for the New Testament to make known the doctrine of eternal pain."

"As more people become more intelligent they care less for preachers and more for teachers."

"If I owe Smith ten dollars and God forgives me, that doesn't pay Smith."

"Hope is the only bee that makes honey without flowers."

"When I think of how much this world has suffered; when I think of how long our fathers were slaves, of how they cringed and crawled at the foot of the throne, and in the dust of the altar, of how they abased themselves, of how abjectly they stood in the presence of superstition robed and crowned, I am amazed."

"The man who does not do his own thinking is a slave, and is a traitor to himself and to his fellowmen."

"It is hard to conceive of the utter demoralization, of the political blindness and immorality, of the patriotic dishonesty, of the cruelty and degradation of a people who supplemented the incomparable Declaration of Independence with the Fugitive Slave Law."

"Justice should remove the bandage from her eyes long enough to distinguish between the vicious and the unfortunate."

"It is a thousand times better to have common sense without education than to have education without common sense."

"In the presence of eternity, the mountains are as transient as the clouds."

"In the night of death, hope sees a star, and listening love can hear the rustle of a wing."

"Courage without conscience is a wild beast."

"The superior man is the providence of the inferior. He is eyes for the blind, strength for the weak, and a shield for the defenseless. He stands erect by bending above the fallen. He rises by lifting others."

"Every man should stand under the blue and stars, under the infinite flag of nature, the peer of every other man."

"Character is made of duty and love and sympathy, and, above all, of living and working for others."

"I say that no man can be greater than the man who bravely and heroically sacrifices his life for the good of others. No man can be greater than the one who meets death face to face, and yet will not shrink from what he believes to be his highest duty."

"He [Alexander von Humboldt] was to science what Shakespeare was to the drama."

"With soap baptism is a good thing."

"Theology is a superstition-Humanity a religion."

"Not one of the orthodox ministers dare preach what he thinks if he knows a majority of his congregation think otherwise. He knows that every member of his church stands guard over his brain with a creed, like a club, in his hand. He knows that he is not expected to search after the truth, but that he is employed to defend the creed. Every pulpit is a pillory, in which stands a hired culprit, defending the justice of his own imprisonment."

"We can conceive of eternity because we cannot conceive of a cessation of time. We can conceive of infinite space because we cannot conceive of so much matter that our imagination will not stand upon the farthest star and see infinite space beyond."

"Kindness is strength. Good-nature is often mistaken for virtue, and good health sometimes passes for genius. Anger blows out the lamp of the mind. In the examination of a great and important question, every one should be serene, slow-pulsed, and calm. Intelligence is not the foundation of arrogance. Insolence is not logic. Epithets are the arguments of malice."

"Who can over estimate the progress of the world if all the money wasted in superstition could be used to enlighten, elevate and civilize mankind?"

"My creed is that: Happiness is the only good. The place to be happy is here. The time to be happy is now. The way to be happy is to make others so."

"Music expresses feeling and thought, without language; it was below and before speech, and it is above and beyond all words."