“Education was in danger from the source that always hampered it – religious fanaticism.”

You can only protect your liberties in this world by protecting the other man’s freedom.

The world is made up for the most part of morons and natural tyrants, sure of themselves, strong in their own opinions, never doubting anything.

The truth is always modern and there never comes a time when it is safe to give it voice.

Ancestors do not mean so much. The rebel who succeeds generally makes it easier for the posterity that follows him; so these descendants are usually contented and smug and soft. Rebels are made from life, not ancestors.

An agnostic is a doubter. The word is generally applied to those who doubt the verity of accepted religious creeds of faiths.

In order to have enough freedom, it is necessary to have too much.

Laws should be like clothes. They should be made to fit the people they are meant to serve.

The fear of God is not the beginning of wisdom. The fear of God is the death of wisdom. Skepticism and doubt lead to study and investigation, and investigation is the beginning of wisdom.

Each child should be more intelligent than his parents.

The objector and the rebel who raises his voice against what he believes to be the injustice of the present and the wrongs of the past is the one who hunches the world along.

The best that we can do is to be kindly and helpful toward our friends and fellow passengers who are clinging to the same speck of dirt while we are drifting side by side to our common doom.

Great wealth often curses all who touch it.

One cannot live through a long stretch of years without forming some philosophy of life.

The purpose of man is like the purpose of a pollywog – to wiggle along as far as he can without dying; or, to hang to life until death takes him.

I am a friend of the working man, and I would rather be his friend, than be one.

Some of you say religion makes people happy. So does laughing gas.

Only the paths that lead to nowhere, merely the storms that are violent, purely the dangerous forests make man a real man!

It is dangerous to take human freedom for granted, to regard it as a prerogative rather than as an obligation, as an ultimate fact rather than as an ultimate goal.

Do you suppose there is any living man so unreasonable that if he found himself stricken with a dangerous ailment he would not anxiously desire to regain the blessing of health?

Love hurts. Feelings are disturbing. People are taught that pain is evil and dangerous

Beauty, like ice, our footing does betray; Who can tread sure on the smooth, slippery way: Pleased with the surface, we glide swiftly on, And see the dangers that we cannot shun.

All delays are dangerous in war.

I am more and more convinced that man is a dangerous creature and that power, whether vested in many or a few, is ever grasping, and like the grave, cries, ‘Give, give.’

I am more and more convinced that man is a dangerous creature.