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2011 October 07
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"The whole freedom of man consists either in spiritual or civil liberty." |
"There are only two forces in the world, the sword and the spirit.
In the long run the sword will always be conquered by the spirit." |
"The only freedom worth possessing is that which gives
enlargement to a people's energy, intellect, and virtues." |
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2011 October 06
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"Freedom is a new religion,
the religion of our time." |
"Dare to be true. Nothing can need a lie:
A fault, which needs it most, grows two thereby." |
"I make my own time. I make my own terms.
I cannot see how God or Nature can ever get the start of me." |
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2011 October 05
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"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." |
"What is considered sinful in one of the great religions to which citizens belong isn't necessarily sinful in the others. Criminal law therefore cannot be based on the notion of sin; it is crimes that it must define." |
"It is hard to fight an enemy who has outposts in your head." |
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2011 October 04
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"The priesthood have, in all ancient nations, nearly monopolized learning.... And, even since the Reformation, when or where has existed a Protestant or dissenting sect who would tolerate A FREE INQUIRY? The blackest billingsgate, the most ungentlemanly insolence, the most yahooish brutality is patiently endured, countenanced, propagated, and applauded. But touch a solemn truth in collision with a dogma of a sect, though capable of the clearest proof, and you will soon find you have disturbed a nest, and the hornets will swarm about your legs and hands, and fly into your face and eyes." |
"The divinity of Jesus is made a convenient cover for absurdity.
Nowhere in the Gospels do we find a precept for Creeds, Confessions,
Oaths, Doctrines, and whole car-loads of other foolish trumpery that
we find in Christianity." |
"The United States of America have exhibited, perhaps, the first example of governments erected on the simple principles of nature; and if men are now sufficiently enlightened to disabuse themselves of artifice, imposture, hypocrisy, and superstition, they will consider this event as an era in their history. Although the detail of the formation of the American governments is at present little known or regarded either in Europe or in America, it may hereafter become an object of curiosity. It will never be pretended that any persons employed in that service had interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the influence of Heaven, more than those at work upon ships or houses, or laboring in merchandise or agriculture; it will forever be acknowledged that these governments were contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses." |
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2011 October 03
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"As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense
founded on the Christian Religion, as it has in itself no character of
enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen, and as
the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility
against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no
pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an
interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries." |
"For me the Jewish religion like all others is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions. And the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong and with whose mentality I have a deep affinity have no different quality for me than all other people. As far as my experience goes, they are no better than other human groups, although they are protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power. Otherwise I cannot see anything 'chosen' about them." |
"Nothing can be more exactly and seriously true than what is there [the very words only of Jesus] stated; that but a short time elapsed after the death of the great reformer of the Jewish religion, before his principles were departed from by those who professed to be his special servants, and perverted into an engine for enslaving mankind, and aggrandising their oppressors in Church and State; that the purest system of morals ever before preached to man, has been adulterated and sophisticated by artificial constructions, into a mere contrivance to filch wealth and power to themselves; that rational men not being able to swallow their impious heresies, in order to force them down their throats, they raise the hue and cry of infidelity, while themselves are the greatest obstacles to the advancement of the real doctrines of Jesus, and do in fact constitute the real Anti-Christ." |
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