If special honor is claimed for any, then heresy should have it as the truest servitor of human kind.

I cannot follow you Christians; for you try to crawl through your life upon your knees, while I stride through mine on my feet.

The abuse dies in a day; but the denial slays the life of the people and entombs the hope of the race.

Without free speech no search for Truth is possible; without free speech no discovery of Truth is useful.

I do not deny "God", because that word conveys to me no idea, and I cannot deny that which presents to me no distinct affirmation, and of which the would-be affirmer has no conception.

Atheist, without God, I look to humankind for sympathy, for love, for hope, for effort, for aid.

Better a thousandfold abuse of free speech than denial of free speech.

I know not what you mean by God; the word God is to me a sound conveying no clear or distinct affirmation.

The word heretic ought to be a term of honour.

There is a court to which I shall appeal: the court of public opinion.

Is it not gain to have diminished the faith that it was the duty of the wretched and the miserable to be content with the lot in life which providence had awarded them?

I have faced death this night, and I have called his bluff.

I love you every day as if it is Valentine’s day.

A fool bolts pleasure then complains of indigestion.

To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time.

When a woman like that whom I've seen so much, All of a sudden drops out of touch; Is always busy and never can, Spare you a moment, it means a man.

A billion years or so into eternity, how many toys we accumulated during this life will not seem too terribly important.

All my artistic response comes from American things, and I guess I've always had a weakness for heroic imagery.

I still can't understand how Cecil and my old tutor, Fitz, got along so well, when we often called Fitz 'the Genius' and avoided calling Cecil anything at all, so as not to be rude.

Some day some one will write a book about that frantic search of the creative worker for silence and freedom, not only from interruption but from the fear of interruption.

Let the one fight for his flag, and the other for his ideal, and let them both imagine that they are fighting for the country; the strife will be colossal.