250 quotes
The present is the child, and the necessary child, of all the past, and the mother of all the future.
How To Reform Mankind (1896)
The present is the necessary product of all the past, the necessary cause of all the future.
What Is Religion? (1899)
By comparing long periods of time, we more clearly perceive the advance that has been made.
How To Reform Mankind (1896)
I had rather live and love where death is king, than have eternal life where love is not.
At A Child's Grave (1882)
The more false we destroy the more room there will be for the true.
Orthodoxy (1884)
There are in nature neither rewards nor punishments — there are consequences. The life of Christ is worth its example, its moral force, its heroism of benevolence.
All laws for the purpose of making man worship God, are born of the same spirit that kindled the fires of the auto da fe, and lovingly built the dungeons of the Inquisition.
Some Mistakes of Moses (1879)
But in the night of Death Hope sees a star and listening Love can hear the rustling of a wing.
A Tribe to Eban C. Ingersoll (1879)
Blasphemy is a padlock which hypocrisy tries to put on the lips of all honest men.
Who can over estimate the progress of the world if all the money wasted in superstition could be used to enlighten, elevate and civilize mankind?
Some Mistakes of Moses (1879)
What light is to the eyes, what love is to the heart, Liberty is to the soul of man. Without it, there come suffocation, degradation and death.
The trial of Charles B. Reynolds for blasphemy (1887)
I have made up my mind that if there is a God, he will be merciful to the merciful.
Upon that rock I stand.
What Must We Do To Be Saved? (1880)
I would not wish to live in a world where I could not express my honest opinions. Men who deny to others the right of speech are not fit to live with honest men.
The trial of Charles B. Reynolds for blasphemy (1887)
I suppose it can be truthfully said that Hope is the only universal liar who never loses his reputation for veracity.
speech (1892)
Every sect is a certificate that God has not plainly revealed his will to man. To each reader the Bible conveys a different meaning.
Some Mistakes of Moses (1879)
Give to every human being every right that you claim for yourself.
An honest God is the noblest work of man.
No man, standing where the horizon of a life has touched a grave, has any right to prophesy a future filled with pain and tears.
At A Child's Grave (1882)
The church is not a pioneer; it accepts a new truth, last of all, and only when denial has become useless.
Liberty is the condition of progress. Without Liberty, there remains only barbarism. Without Liberty, there can be no civilization.
The trial of Charles B. Reynolds for blasphemy (1887)