"Гораздо лучше быть справедливым, чем верить в божественность Иисуса Христа."

"Тот, кто живет для потустороннего мира, опасен в этом."

"The universe is all the God there is."

"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."

"The clergy know that I know that they know that they do not know."

"Why should I allow that same God to tell me how to raise my kids, who had to drown His own?"

"An honest God is the noblest work of man."

"Our ignorance is God; what we know is science."

"There is no harmony between religion and science. When science was a child, religion sought to strangle it in the cradle. Now that science has attained its youth, and superstition is in its dotage, the trembling, palsied wreck says to the athlete: 'Let us be friends.' It reminds me of the bargain the cock wished to make with the horse: 'Lut us agree not to step on each other's feet.'"

"With soap, baptism is a good thing."

"Let us put theology out of religion. Theology has always sent the worst to heaven, the best to hell."

"The Church has always been willing to swap off treasures in heaven for cash down."

"A crime against god is a demonstrated impossibility."

"For ages, a deadly conflict has been waged between a few brave men and women of thought and genius upon the one side, and the great ignorant religious mass on the other. This is the war between Science and Faith. The few have appealed to reason, to honor, to law, to freedom, to the known, and to happiness here in this world. The many have appealed to prejudice, to fear, to miracle, to slavery, to the unknown, and to misery hereafter. The few have said, "Think!" T he many have said, "Believe!" [The Gods, 1872].

"A fact never went into partnership with a miracle. Truth scorns the assistance of wonders. A fact will fit every other fact in the universe, and that is how you can tell whether it is or is not a fact. A lie will not fit anything except another lie."

"If a man would follow, today, the teachings of the Old Testament, he would be a criminal. If he would follow strictly the teachings of the New, he would be insane."

"Age after age, the strong have trampled upon the weak; the crafty and heartless have ensnared and enslaved the simple and innocent, and nowhere, in all the annals of mankind, has any god succored the oppressed.'

"It is an old habit with theologians to beat the living with the bones of the dead."

"Blasphemy is an epithet bestowed by superstition upon common sense."

"I admit that reason is a small and feeble flame, a flickering torch by stumblers carried in the star-less night, blown and flared by passion's storm, and yet, it is the only light. Extinguish that, and nought remains."

"Churches are becoming political organizations.... It probably will not be long until the churches will divide as sharply upon political, as upon theological questions; and when that day comes, if there are not liberals enough to hold the balance of power, this Government will be destroyed. The liberty of man is not safe in the hands of any church. Wherever the Bible and sword are in partnership, man is a slave. 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. All laws defining and punishing blasphemy -- making it a crime to give your honest ideas about the Bible, or to laugh at the ignorance of the ancient Jews, or to enjoy yourself on the Sabbath, or to give your opinion of Jehovah, were passed by impudent bigots, and should be at once repealed by honest men. An infinite God ought to be able to protect himself, without going in partnership with State Legislatures. Certainly he ought not so to act that laws become necessary to keep him from being laughed at. No one thinks of protecting Shakespeare from ridicule, by the threat of fine and imprisonment. It strikes me that God might write a book that would not necessarily excite the laughter of his children. In fact, I think it would be safe to say that a real God could produce a work that would excite the admiration of mankind. Surely politicians could be better employed than in passing laws to protect the literary reputation of the Jewish God." [Some Mistakes of Moses].

"The inspiration of the Bible depends upon the ignorance of the gentleman who reads it."

"If I owe Smith ten dollars and God forgives me, that doesn't pay Smith."

"The notion that faith in Christ is to be rewarded by an eternity of bliss, while a dependence upon reason, observation, and experience merits everlasting pain, is too absurd for refutation, and can be relieved only by that unhappy mixture of insanity and ignorance called 'faith.'"

"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."

"Anger blows out the lamp of the mind. In the examination of a great and important question, everyone should be serene, slow-pulsed and calm."

"Give to every human being every right that you claim for yourself."

"It is a thousand times better to have common sense without education than to have education without common sense."