All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.

We can only reason from what is; we can reason on actualities, but not on possibilities.

Belief in a cruel God makes a cruel man.

He who is the author of a war lets loose the whole contagion of hell and opens a vein that bleeds a nation to death.

Give to every other human being every right that you claim for yourself - that is my doctrine.

It is impossible to calculate the moral mischief, if I may so express it, that mental lying has produced in society. When a man has so far corrupted and prostituted the chastity of his mind as to subscribe his professional belief to things he does not believe he has prepared himself for the commission of every other crime.

That God cannot lie, is no advantage to your argument, because it is no proof that priests can not, or that the Bible does not.

Lead, follow, or get out of the way.

Suspicion is the companion of mean souls, and the bane of all good society.

Character is much easier kept than recovered.

A thing moderately good is not so good as it ought to be. Moderation in temper is always a virtue; but moderation in principle is always a vice.

It is a fraud of the Christian system to call the sciences human invention; it is only the application of them that is human. Every science has for its basis a system of principles as fixed and unalterable as those by which the universe is regulated and governed. Man cannot make principles; he can only discover them.

Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.

The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly; it is dearness only that gives everything its value. I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress and grow brave by reflection. ‘Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death.

It is error only, and not truth, that shrinks from inquiry.

I do not choose to be a common man,
It is my right to be uncommon … if I can,
I seek opportunity … not security.
I do not wish to be a kept citizen.
Humbled and dulled by having the
State look after me.
I want to take the calculated risk;
To dream and to build.
To fail and to succeed.
I refuse to barter incentive for a dole;
I prefer the challenges of life
To the guaranteed existence;
The thrill of fulfillment
To the stale calm of Utopia.
I will not trade freedom for beneficence
Nor my dignity for a handout
I will never cower before any master
Nor bend to any threat.
It is my heritage to stand erect.
Proud and unafraid;
To think and act for myself,
To enjoy the benefit of my creations
And to face the world boldly and say:
This, with God’s help, I have done
All this is what it means
To be an Entrepreneur.

We have it in our power to begin the world over again.

An army of principles can penetrate where an army of soldiers cannot.

One good schoolmaster is of more use than a hundred priests.

When men yield up the privilege of thinking, the last shadow of liberty quits the horizon.

Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.

The obscene and vulgar stories in the Bible are as repugnant to our ideas of the purity of a Divine Being, as the horrid cruelties and murders it ascribes to Him are repugnant to our ideas of His justice.

A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right.

The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.

War involves in its progress such a train of unforeseen circumstances that no human wisdom can calculate the end; it has but one thing certain, and that is to increase taxes.

There are matters in the Bible, said to be done by the express commandment of God, that are shocking to humanity and to every idea we have of moral justice.

Of all the tyrannies that affect mankind, tyranny in religion is the worst.

When we are planning for posterity, we ought to remember that virtue is not hereditary.

The real man smiles in trouble, gathers strength from distress, and grows brave by reflection.

If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace.