118 quotes
Instruction does not prevent waste of time or mistakes; and mistakes themselves are often the best teachers of all.
Crime is not punished as an offense against God, but as prejudicial to society.
We are complex, and therefore, in our natural state, inconsistent, beings, and the opinion of this hour need not be the opinion of the next.
Human improvement is from within outwards.
Because an anathema upon unbelief has been appended as a guardian of the creed. very politic way, of maintaining the creed, this of anathema.
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)
We read the past by the light of the present, and the forms vary as the shadows fall, or as the point of vision alters.
Unfortunately the wrong man was generally assassinated. The true criminal was an absentee, and his agent was shot instead of him.
In common things the law of sacrifice takes the form of positive duty.
There are epidemics of nobleness as well as epidemics of disease.
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)
Experience is no more transferable in morals than in art.
Experience teaches slowly, and at the cost of mistakes.
We live merely on the crust or rind of things.
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)
The Providence that watches over the affairs of men works out of their mistakes, at times, a healthier issue than could have been accomplished by their wisest forethought.
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)