70 quotes
He went down to hell, but it was to break the chains, not to bind them.
The Nemesis of Faith (1849)
Who shall say that those poor peasants were not acting in the spirit we most venerate, most adore; that theirs was not the true heart language which we cannot choose but love?
The Nemesis of Faith (1849)
It is alike self-contradictory and contrary to experience, that a man of two goods should choose the lesser, knowing it at the time to be the lesser.
The Nemesis of Faith (1849)
I would sooner perish for ever than stoop down before a Being who may have power to crush me, but whom my heart forbids me to reverence.
The Nemesis of Faith (1849)
I scarcely know a professional man I can like, and certainly not one who has been what the world calls successful, that I should the least wish to resemble.
The Nemesis of Faith (1849)
Charity is from person to person; and it loses half, far more than half, its moral value when the giver is not brought into personal relation with those to whom he gives.
The Nemesis of Faith (1849)
Life is change, to cease to change is to cease to live; yet if you may shed a tear beside the death-bed of an old friend, let not your heart be silent on the dissolving of a faith.
The Nemesis of Faith (1849)
The Mahometans say their Koran was written by God. The Hindoos say the Vedas were; we say the Bible was, and we are but interested witnesses in deciding absolutely and exclusively for ourselves.
The Nemesis of Faith (1849)
Happily I had very early learned the fallacy of building much on logic and verbal argument.
The Nemesis of Faith (1849)
Fling away your soul once for all, your own small self; if you will find it again. Count not even on immortality.
The Nemesis of Faith (1849)
It is ill changing the creed to meet each rising temptation. The soul is truer than it seems, and refuses to be trifled with.
The Nemesis of Faith (1849)
To man alone the doings of man are wrong; the evil which is with us dies out beyond us; we are but a part of nature, and blend with the rest in her persevering beauty.
The Nemesis of Faith (1849)
We call heaven our home, as the best name we know to give it.
The Nemesis of Faith (1849)
The trials of life will not wait for us. They come at their own time, not caring much to inquire how ready we may be to meet them.
The Nemesis of Faith (1849)
How true it is that arguments have only power over us while the temper is disposed to listen to them!
The Nemesis of Faith (1849)
In the great cities, where men gather in their crowds and the work of the world is done, and the fate of the world is determined, there it is that the ideas of succeeding eras breed and grow and gather form and power, and grave out the moulds for the stamp of after ages.
The Nemesis of Faith (1849)
Yes, genius alone is the Redeemer; it bears our sorrows, it is crowned with thorns for us; the children of genius are the church militant, the army of the human race.
The Nemesis of Faith (1849)
The conviction of the martyr that the stake is the gate of Paradise, diminishes the dignity of the suffering in proportion to its strength. If it be absolute certainty, the trial is absolutely nothing.
The Nemesis of Faith (1849)
Scepticism, like wisdom, springs out in full panoply only from the brain of a god, and it is little profit to see an idea in its growth, unless we track its seed to the power which sowed it.
The Nemesis of Faith (1849)
I begin to look about me to listen to what had to be said on many sides of the question, and try, as far as I could, to give it all fair hearing.
The Nemesis of Faith (1849)