“Patriotism is an ephemeral motive that scarcely ever outlasts the particular threat to society that aroused it.”

Time, matter, space – all, it may be, are no more than a point.

The pit of a theatre is the one place where the tears of virtuous and wicked men alike are mingled.

Whatever dressing one gives to mushrooms, to whatever sauces our Apiciuses put them, they are not really good but to be sent back to the dungheap where they are born.

You risk just as much in being credulous as in being suspicious.

There is no good father who would want to resemble our Heavenly Father.

If a misplaced admiration shows imbecility, an affected criticism shows vice of character. Expose thyself rather to appear a beast than false.

In any country where talent and virtue produce no advancement, money will be the national god. Its inhabitants will either have to possess money or make others believe that they do. Wealth will be the highest virtue, poverty the greatest vice.

To prove the Gospels by a miracle is to prove an absurdity by something contrary to nature.

Genius is present in every age, but the men carrying it within them remain benumbed unless extraordinary events occur to heat up and melt the mass so that it flows forth.

There is no true sovereign except the nation; there can be no true legislator except the people.

The Christian religion teaches us to imitate a God that is cruel, insidious, jealous, and implacable in his wrath.

There’s a bit of testicle at the bottom of our most sublime feelings and our purest tenderness.

The decisions of law courts should never be printed: in the long run, they form a counter authority to the law.

Whether God exists or does not exist, He has come to rank among the most sublime and useless truths.

Mankind have banned the Divinity from their presence; they have relegated him to a sanctuary; the walls of the temple restrict his view; he does not exist outside of it.

It is not human nature we should accuse but the despicable conventions that pervert it.

Beautiful sights arouse feelings of love, and contrary sights bring feelings of disgrace and hate. And the emotions of the soul and spirit bring something additional to the body itself, which exists under the control of the soul and the direction of the spirit.

One fact stands out in bold relief in the history of man’s attempts for betterment. That is that when compulsion is used, only resentment is aroused, and the end is not gained. Only through moral suasion and appeal to man’s reason can a movement succeed.

Speeches made to the people are essential to the arousing of enthusiasm for a war.

I wanted to become the seeker, the aroused and passionate explorer, and it was better to go at it knowing nothing at all, always choosing the unmarked bottle, always choosing your own unproven method, armed with nothing but faith and a belief in astonishment.

The Afro-American is not a bestial race. If this work can contribute in any way towards proving this, and at the same time arouse the conscience of the American people to a demand for justice to every citizen, and punishment by law for the lawless,

One of the most depressing features of the ethical side of the matter is that instead of such methods arousing contempt they are more or less openly admired. And this is logical.

Nothing more strongly arouses our disgust than cannibalism.

Architecture arouses sentiments in man. T