“Laws have come down to us from old customs and folk-ways based on primitive ideas of man’s origin, capacity and responsibility.”

Anyone can spot a lie, unless he is in need of that lie.

Wars always bring about a conservative reaction. They overwhelm and destroy patient and careful efforts to improve the condition of man.

I don’t believe in God because I don’t believe in Mother Goose.

My constitution was destroyed long ago; now I am living under the bylaws.

Chloroform unfit children. Show them the same mercy that is shown beasts that are no longer fit to live.

Someday I hope to write a book where the royalties will pay for the copies I give away.

Just think of the tragedy of teaching children not to doubt.

Whenever I hear people discussing birth control, I always remember that I was fifth.

In spite of all the yearnings of men, no one can produce a single fact or reason to support the belief in God and in personal immortality.

I have suffered from being misunderstood, but I would have suffered a hell of a lot more if I had been understood.

I am an agnostic; I do not pretend to know what many ignorant men are sure of.

The man who fights for his fellow-man is a better man than the one who fights for himself.

I feel as I always have, that the earth is the home and the only home of man, and I am convinced that whatever he is to get out of his existence he must get while he is here.

Inside every lawyer is the wreck of a poet.

Eugene V. Debs has always been one of my heroes.

No man is a good citizen, a good neighbor, a good friend, or a good man just because he obeys the law. The intrinsic worth is determined mainly by the intrinsic make-up.

The perpetual obstacle to human advancement is custom.

Whatever may be the laws and customs of a country, women always give the tone to morals.

The universality of a custom is pledge of its worth.

The Roman state stands by ancient customs, and its manhood.

How many things both just and unjust are sanctioned by custom?

We live always under the weight of the old and odious customs… of our barbarous ancestors.

The custom is often noticed in the Old Testament, and still prevails in the east, and in some of the newly discovered South Sea Islands.

Men of sense in all ages abhor those customs which treat us only as the vassals of your sex.