Religion may be defined thus: a belief in, and homage rendered to, existences unseen and causes unknown.

Credulity is always a ridiculous, often a dangerous failing: it has made of many a clever man, a fool; and of many a good man, a knave.

Equality is the soul of liberty; there is, in fact, no liberty without it.

Equality! Where is it, if not in education? Equal rights! They cannot exist without equality of instruction.

Pets, like their owners, tend to expand a little over the Christmas period.

Moral truth, resting entirely upon the ascertained consequences of actions, supposes a process of observation and reasoning.

Instead of establishing facts, we have to overthrow errors; instead of ascertaining what is, we have to chase from our imaginations what is not.

... the happiness of a people is the only rational object of government, and the only object for which a people, free to choose, can have a government at all.

Trust me, there are as many ways of living as there are men, and one is no more fit to lead another, than a bird to lead a fish, or a fish a quadruped.

These will vary in every human being; but knowledge is the same for every mind, and every mind may and ought to be trained to receive it.

the mode of delivering a truth makes, for the most part, as much impression on the mind of the listener as the truth itself.

A national debt if it is not excessive will be to us a national blessing.

Gambling is legal and betting is legal, for what I bet.

In the future, I can imagine that we will genetically modify ourselves using the genes that have doubled our life span since we were chimpanzees.

That's a lot more legitimate than the retail therapy I do.

It takes a lot when you are a professional fighter to stay in top condition. You have to sacrifice a lot and I did.

For just a few dollars registration, you got temporary possession of a good piece of land. Live on it for five years, build a house, and farm it, and it was yours. What a brilliant economic stimulus!

When we love others we see our oneness with others.

The sense itself was I. I felt no dross or matter in my soul, no brims or borders, such as in a bowl we see. My essence was capacity.

Overfishing is an obvious threat to our capacity to feed ourselves.

Men do not fight for flag or country, for the Marine Corps or glory or any other abstraction. They fight for one another. And if you came through this ordeal, you would age with dignity.