I know of no crime that has not been defended by the church, in one form or other. The church is not a pioneer; it accepts a new truth, last of all, and only when denial has become useless.

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.

Liberty, according to my metaphysics is a self-determining power in an intellectual agent. It implies thought and choice and power.

I have never been able to renounce the light, the pleasure of being, and the freedom in which I grew up.

Real French people don't bake! At least they don't bake anything complicated, finicky, tricky or unreliable.

My mission is to see things as they are. Exactly contrary of a mission.

Every writer and artist wonders what in the world people of other professions can find to live for.

The society of women is the element of good manners.

I would beseech you not only to be pure beyond suspicion but I would ask you to combine with stainless purity, great wisdom and great ability.

You could power America with renewables from a technical and economic standpoint. The biggest obstacles are social and political - what you need is the will to do it.

Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in a lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope.

I hazard the guess that man will be ultimately known for a mere polity of multifarious, incongruous, and independent denizens.