Blasphemy is what an old dogma screams at a new truth.

Secularism is a religion, a religion that is understood. It has no mysteries, no mumblings, no priests, no ceremonies, no falsehoods, no miracles, and no persecutions.

Religion can never reform mankind because religion is slavery.

Happiness is not a reward - it is a consequence. Suffering is not a punishment - it is a result.

Do you not know that every religion in the world has declared every other religion a fraud? Yes, we all know it. That is the time all religions tell the truth - each of the other.

Superstition is, always has been, and forever will be, the foe of progress, the enemy of education and the assassin of freedom.

The myth of hell represents all the meanness, all the revenge, all the selfishness, all the cruelty, all the hatred, all the infamy of which the heart of man is capable.

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.

Give to every human being every right that you claim for yourself.

The intellectual advancement of man depends on how often he can exchange an old superstition for a new truth.

There can be but little liberty on earth while men worship a tyrant in heaven.

When you have the means and information to cure a disease and don't . . . you are the disease.

You must trust and believe in people or life becomes impossible.

The vitality of thought is in adventure. Ideas won't keep. Something must be done about them. When the idea is new, its custodians have fervor, live for it, and if need be, die for it.

There are no ambitions noble enough to justify breaking someone's heart.

I used to believe I was going to live forever. And then you suddenly become aware that you're not.

We can't change the moon but we can live in harmony with its tides, and we can make some ripples of our own.

The Church of the Apostles was a Church of the poor; of silver and gold it had none.

Perhaps my whisper was already born before my lips.

Seemingly unrelated [things] that are in fact really related, that's the stuff I like to talk about. Like dancing, language learning, swimming, three-pointers.

There is something about poverty that smells like death.