“The inward persuasion that we are free to do, or not to do a thing, is but a mere illusion. If we trace the true principle of our actions, we shall find, that they are always necessary consequences of our volitions and desires, which are never in our power.”

The Jehovah of the Jews is a suspicious tyrant, who breathes nothing but blood, murder, and carnage, and who demands that they should nourish him with the vapours of animals.

All children are born Atheists; they have no idea of God.

The source of man’s unhappiness is his ignorance of Nature.

When we examine the opinions of men, we find that nothing is more uncommon, than common sense; or, in other words, they lack judgment to discover plain truths, or to reject absurdities, and palpable contradictions.

The Jupiter of the Pagans is a lascivious monster. The Moloch of the Phoenicians is a cannibal. The pure mind of the Christians resolved, in order to appease his fury, to crucify his own son.

The atheist . . . destroys the chimeras which afflict the human race, and so leads men back to nature, to experience and to reason.

It is thus superstition infatuates man from his infancy, fills him with vanity, and enslaves him with fanaticism.

Tolerance and freedom of thought are the veritable antidotes to religious fanaticism.

These principles, universally recognized, are at fault when the question of the existence of God is considered; what has been said of Him is either unintelligible or perfectly contradictory; and for this reason must appear impossible to every man.

Only to finally get the barbarian pleasure to punish them in an excessive way, of no use for himself, without them changing their ways and without their example preventing others from committing crimes.

If the ministers of the Church have often permitted nations to revolt for Heaven’s cause, they never allowed them to revolt against real evils or known violencess. It is from Heaven that the chains have come to fetter the minds of mortals.

All religious notions are uniformly founded on authority; all the religions of the world forbid examination, and are not disposed that men should reason upon them.

You think yourself free, because you do what you will; but are you free to will, or not to will; to desire, or not to desire? Are not your volitions and desires necessarily excited by objects or qualities totally independent of you?

How could the human mind progress, while tormented with frightful phantoms, and guided by men, interested in perpetuating its ignorance and fears?

In Nature nothing; is mean or contemptible, and it is only pride, originating in a false idea of our superiority, which causes our contempt for some of her productions. In the eyes of Nature, however, the oyster that vegetates at the bottom of the sea is as dear and perfect as the proud biped who devours it.

Savage and furious nations, perpetually at war, adore, under diverse names, some God, conformable to their ideas, that is to say, cruel, carnivorous, selfish, blood-thirsty.

I’ve never compromised who I am not ever. If I’ve gotten anywhere in my life it’s been on my own merits.

If you’re paid before you walk on the court, what’s the point in playing as if your life depended on it?

In the United States, the majority undertakes to supply a multitude of ready-made opinions for the use of individuals, who are thus relieved from the necessity of forming opinions of their own.

You can only depend on yourself. The cavalry aint coming.

There is no dignity quite so impressive, and no one independence quite so important, as living within your means.

in today’s world no country can be absolutely independent of another. It is a world of interdependence.

Unless the people, through unified action, arise and take charge of their government, they will find that their government has taken charge of them. Independence and liberty will be gone, and the general public will find itself in a condition of servitude to an aggregation of organized and selfish interest.

It’s a very independent male creature that lives alone, and a lot of independent females who live alone. It’s all very sad but it’s much easier for both sexes to do it this way nowadays.