Civilization has gotten further and further from the so-called 'natural' man, who uses all his faculties: perception, invention, improvisation.

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.

I knew that by this time tomorrow, I was going to be eternally grateful for falling down the stairs and knocking myself unconscious. Smartest dumbest thing I'd ever done.

We may be a little broken these days but I wouldn't trade it for anything.

The belief that all genuine education comes about through experience does not mean that all experiences are genuinely or equally educative.

I definitely believe that the so-called American decline is greatly exaggerated.

Sometimes I think fiction exists to model the way God might think of us, if God had the time and inclination to do so.

I normally shun the spotlight, but I don't mind being the platform.

In the presence of nature, a wild delight runs through the man, in spite of real sorrows.

In truth, he who is not content with what he has would not be content with whatever he acquires.

There is no one quite as popular in any form of football as the backup QB.

Envy is littleness of soul.