To me, the most obscene word in our language is celibacy.

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.

A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have.

The love of gardening is a seed once sown that never dies.

This truth within thy mind rehearse, That in a boundless universe Is boundless better, boundless worse.

A woman's life is not perfect or whole till she has added herself to a husband. Nor is a man's life perfect or whole till he has added to himself a wife.

Love is a reality which is born in the fairy region of romance.

But there are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talked about in the great outside world of winning and achieving and displaying.

It's so difficult, particularly with an antisocial character. It's much easier if he's already a blank page, but once you've written on him, it's hard to keep him that stripped down.

When there is a choice about it, a great sacrifice is preferable to a small sacrifice, because we compensate ourselves for a greatone with self-admiration, which is not possible with a small one.

Even if I could not earn a penny from my writing, I would earn my livelihood at something else and continue to write at night.

I always wondered what people thought of it because it looked so stupid to me on the page and I loved the other finale so I thought it was going to be really stupid but some people really liked it.