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. |
My objection to Christianity is that it is infinitely cruel, infinitely selfish, and I might add infinitely absurd |
My principal objections to orthodox religion are two - slavery here and hell hereafter |
No day can be so sacred but that the laugh of a little child will make it holier still |
Nothing could be more dangerous to the existence of this Republic than to introduce religion into politics |
One good schoolmaster is worth a thousand priests |
Orthodoxy cannot afford to put out the fires of hell |
Our hope of immortality does not come from any religions, but nearly all religions come from that hope |
Read it as you would any other book; think of it as you would of any other; get the bandage of reverence from your eyes; drive from your heart the phantom of fear; push from the throne of your brain the cowled form of superstition - then read the Holy Bible, and you will be amazed that you ever, for one moment, supposed a being of infinite wisdom, goodness, and purity to be the author of such ignorance and of such atrocity. |
Reason, observation, and experience; the holy trinity of science. |
Religion can never reform mankind because religion is slavery. |
Religion has not civilized man, man has civilized religion |
Religion is one of the phases of thought through which the world is passing |
Science built the Academy, superstition the inquisition |
Surely there is grandeur in knowing that in the realm of thought, at least, you are without a chain; that you have the right to explore all heights and depth; that there are no walls nor fences, nor prohibited places, nor sacred corners in all the vast expanse of thought... |