“No man has received from nature the right to command his fellow human beings.”

If there is one realm in which it is essential to be sublime, it is in wickedness. You spit on a petty thief, but you can’t deny a kind of respect for the great criminal.

There are three principal means of acquiring knowledge, observation of nature, reflection, and experimentation. Observation collects facts; reflection combines them; experimentation verifies the result of that combination.

Power acquired by violence is only a usurpation, and lasts only as long as the force of him who commands prevails over that of those who obey.

There is no kind of harassment that a man may not inflict on a woman with impunity in civilized societies.

Distance is a great promoter of admiration.

When superstition is allowed to perform the task of old age in dulling the human temperament, we can say goodbye to all excellence in poetry, in painting, and in music.

What has not been examined impartially has not been well examined. Skepticism is therefore the first step towards truth.

The God of the Christians is a father who makes much of his apples, and very little of his children.

Does not vanity itself cease to be blamable, is it not even ennobled, when it is directed to laudable objects, when it confines itself to prompting us to great and generous actions?

We are all instruments endowed with feeling and memory. Our senses are so many strings that are struck by surrounding objects and that also frequently strike themselves.

Poetry needs something on the scale of the grand, the barbarous, the savage.

Skepticism is the first step on the road to philosophy.

The possibility of divorce renders both marriage partners stricter in their observance of the duties they owe to each other. Divorces help to improve morals and to increase the population.

A thing is not proved because no one has ever questioned it. Skepticism is the first step toward truth.

My friend, you should blow out your candle in order to find your way more clearly.

It has been said that love robs those who have it of their wit, and gives it to those who have none.

No man can break any of the Ten Commandments. He can only break himself against them.

If in the sight of God you cannot say you are sure that you have a special call to stay at home, why are you disobeying the Saviour’s plain command to go?

Souls generally do not fall away from Christ because of the Creed; they first have difficulty with the Commandments.

Civilization is always in danger when those who have never learned to obey are given the right to command.

How could science be an enemy of religion when God commanded man to be a scientist the day He told him to rule the earth and subject it?

Anxiety is the greatest evil that can befall a soul, except sin. God commands you to pray, but He forbids you to worry.

To serve the Queen of Heaven is already to reign there, and to live under her commands is more than to govern.

The Great Commission is not an option to be considered; it is a command to be obeyed.