Never trust a government that doesnt trust its own citizens with guns.


The art of government consists in taking as much money as possible from one part of the citizens to give it to another.


It is a great evil to be a heretic, but is it a great good to maintain orthodoxy by soldiers and executioners?


The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it.


Verses which do not teach men new and moving truths do not deserve to be read.


Religion, like poetry, is not a mere idea, it is expression. The self-expression of God is in the endless variety of creation; and our attitude toward the Infinite Being must also in its expression have a variety of individuality ceaseless and unending. Those sects which jealously build their boundaries with too rigid creeds excluding all spontaneous movement of the living spirit may hoard their theology but they kill religion.


The pious sectarian is proud because he is confident of his right of possession in God. The man of devotion is meek because he is conscious of God’s right of love over his life and soul. The object of our possession becomes smaller than ourselves, and without acknowledging it in so many words the bigoted sectarian has an implicit belief that God can be kept secured for certain individuals in a cage which is of their own make. In a similar manner the primitive races of men believe that their ceremonials have a magic influence upon their deities. Sectarianism is a perverse form of worldliness in the disguise of religion; it breeds a narrowness of heart in a greater measure than the cult of the world based upon material interest can ever do. For undisguised pursuit of self has its safety in openness, like filth exposed to the sun and air. But the self-magnification with its consequent lessening of God that goes on unchecked under the cover of sectarianism loses its chance of salvation because it defiles the very source of purity.


I may disagree with what you have to say, but I shall defend, to the death, your right to say it.


"Those people who tell me that I'm going to hell
while they are going to heaven
somehow make me very glad
that we're going to separate destinations."


There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.