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

Our observation of nature must be diligent, our reflection profound, and our experiments exact. We rarely see these three means combined; and for this reason, creative geniuses are not common.

You have to make it happen.

The enjoyment of freedom which could be exercised without any motivation would be the real hallmark of a maniac.

The philosopher has never killed any priests, whereas the priest has killed a great many philosophers.

People praise virtue, but they hate it, they run away from it. It freezes you to death, and in this world you’ve got to keep your feet warm.

I like better for one to say some foolish thing upon important matters than to be silent. That becomes the subject of discussion and dispute, and the truth is discovered.

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.

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.

They are innocent/they are not the ones who raped the earth/they enrich it for us all from the tiniest microscopic beings to the largest ones.

The warlords–of war and peace–destroyed so much, not only what existed, but all those new things that could have existed, if only individuals were left in peace.

Extinction’ issue. Save the species for whom???

Learn what you are and be such.

True freedom is in the Realization that there is only God and You are That One.

Lest the chain be broken Ere the pilgrimage be done.

Without true celebration discipline is obnoxious.

Betrayed or apparently not Loved.