Shakespeare pursued the highway of the right. He did not seek to put his characters in a position where it was right to do wrong.
— Robert Green Ingersoll
It has been said that a man of genius should select his ancestors with great care - and yet there does not seem to be as much in heredity as most people think. The children of the great are often small.
The children of great authors do not, as a rule, become writers.
Let us account for all we see by the facts we know. If there are things for which we cannot account, let us wait for light.
Our government should be entirely and purely secular. The religious views of a candidate should be kept entirely out of sight.
It is what people do not know that they persecute each other about.
Taste and love are not the servants of the will. Love is and must be free. It rises from the heart like perfume from a flower.
If matter cannot be destroyed, cannot be annihilated, it could not have been created. The indestructible must be uncreatable.
The sacred books of all the world are worthless dross and common stones compared with Shakespeare's glittering gold and gleaming gems.
For the most part, we inherit our opinions. We are the heirs of habits and mental customs.
Ignorance is the soil in which belief in miracles grows.
Courage without conscience is a wild beast.
Hope is the only bee that makes honey without flowers.
Surely there is grandeur in knowing that in the realm of thought, at least, you are without a chain; that you have the right to explore all heights and depth; that there are no walls nor fences, nor prohibited places, nor sacred corners in all the vast expanse of thought.
I would rather live and love where death is king than have eternal life where love is not.
Every man is dishonest who lives upon the labor of others, no matter if he occupies a throne.
When the will defies fear, when duty throws the gauntlet down to fate, when honor scorns to compromise with death - that is heroism.
When men are prosperous, they are in love with life. Nature grows beautiful, the arts begin to flourish, there is work for painter and sculptor, the poet is born, the stage is erected - and this life with which men are in love is represented in a thousand forms.
The truth is that all great men have had great mothers. Great women have had, as a rule, great fathers.
Ignorant people are apt to overrate the value of what is called education. The sons of the poor, having suffered the privations of poverty, think of wealth as the mother of joy.
If you wish to reflect credit upon your parents, accomplish more than they did, solve problems that they could not understand, and build better than they knew.
There are so many societies, so many churches, so many -isms, that it is almost impossible for an independent man to succeed in a political career.
Science has nothing in common with religion. Facts and miracles never did and never will agree.
He who does not want does not act.
I concluded that all religions had the same foundation - a belief in the supernatural - a power above nature that man could influence by worship - by sacrifice and prayer.
In spite of my surroundings, of my education, I had no love for God.
Tolerance is giving to every other human being every right that you claim for yourself.
I will not attack your doctrines nor your creeds if they accord liberty to me. If they hold thought to be dangerous - if they aver that doubt is a crime, then I attack them one and all, because they enslave the minds of men.
The inspiration of the Bible depends upon the ignorance of the gentleman who reads it.
The true civilization is where every man gives to every other every right that he claims for himself.
Reason, observation, and experience; the holy trinity of science.
The more liberty you give away the more you will have.
Hope is the only universal liar who never loses his reputation for veracity.
Happiness is not a reward - it is a consequence. Suffering is not a punishment - it is a result.
Kings had their clowns, the people their actors and musicians. Shakespeare was scheduled as a servant. It is thus that successful stupidity has always treated genius.
Nature is filled with tendencies and obstructions. Extremes beget limitations, even as a river by its own swiftness creates obstructions for itself.
We can conceive of eternity because we cannot conceive of a cessation of time. We can conceive of infinite space because we cannot conceive of so much matter that our imagination will not stand upon the farthest star and see infinite space beyond.
As long as the people persist in voting for or against men on account of their religious views, just so long will hypocrisy hold place and power.
When every church becomes a school, every cathedral a university, every clergyman a teacher, and all their hearers brave and honest thinkers, then - and not until then - will the dream of poet, patriot, philanthropist and philosopher become a real and blessed truth.
Until every soul is freely permitted to investigate every book and creed and dogma for itself, the world cannot be free.
There can be goodness without much intelligence - but it seems to me that perfect intelligence and perfect goodness must go together.
Voltaire lighted a torch and gave to others the sacred flame. The light still shines and will as long as man loves liberty and seeks for truth.
The mind cannot be securely anchored. If we do not advance, we go backward. If we do not grow, we decay. If we do not develop, we shrink and shrivel.
There can be but little liberty on earth while men worship a tyrant in heaven.
It is a blessed thing that in every age some one has had the individuality enough and courage enough to stand by his own convictions.
The superior man is the providence of the inferior. He is eyes for the blind, strength for the weak, and a shield for the defenseless. He stands erect by bending above the fallen. He rises by lifting others.
Few nations have been so poor as to have but one god. Gods were made so easily, and the raw material cost so little, that generally the god market was fairly glutted and heaven crammed with these phantoms.
In the republic of mediocrity, genius is dangerous.
Kindness is the sunshine in which virtue grows.
If I owe Smith ten dollars and God forgives me, that doesn't pay Smith.
