I have not the slightest confidence in 'spiritual manifestations.'

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.

Convert your time into useful assets

When I was in architecture school at Princeton, the worst thing you could say about someone was that they were eclectic.

It is so much easier to extol the virtues of civility than to talk civilly about the virtues we need to uphold.

As a conductor I find the hardest tasks are to listen to the instinct of a musician and to hear the music behind the notes.

I think you have to be weird to swim breaststroke.

I've never been quarantined. But the more I look around the more I think it might not be a bad idea.

More than two decades later, it is hard to imagine the Revolutionary War coming out any other way.

The truth is, I need to experience my mother's presence in the world around me and not just in my head.

It's a very beneficial experience for me that America has started to be interested in me. I get offers here, and I'm very open to having a new spring in my career here.

If you turn your back on a customer, you turn your back on success.