Occupation: Writer Birth: September 6, 1795 Death: December 13, 1852
Religion may be defined thus: a belief in, and homage rendered to, existences unseen and causes unknown..
These will vary in every human being; but knowledge is the same for every mind, and every mind may and ought to be trained to receive it..
Instead of establishing facts, we have to overthrow errors; instead of ascertaining what is, we have to chase from our imaginations what is not..
the mode of delivering a truth makes, for the most part, as much impression on the mind of the listener as the truth itself..
Do not confound noise with fame. The man who is remembered, is not always honored..
it is not that religion is merely useless, it is mischievous. It is mischievous by its idle terrors; it is mischievous by its false morality; it is m….
Pets, like their owners, tend to expand a little over the Christmas period..
What were the glories of the sun, if we knew not the gloom of darkness?.
Moral truth, resting entirely upon the ascertained consequences of actions, supposes a process of observation and reasoning..
All that I say is, examine, inquire. Look into the nature of things. Search out the grounds of your opinions, the for and against. Know why you belie….
He who lives in the single exercise of his mental faculties, however usefully or curiously directed, is equally an imperfect animal with the man who ….
We are on the earth, and they tell us of heaven; we are human beings, and they tell us of angels and devils; we are matter, and they tell us of spiri….
The simplest principles become difficult of practice, when habits, formed in error, have been fixed by time, and the simplest truths hard to receive ….
Turn your churches into halls of science, and devote your leisure day to the study of your own bodies, the analysis of your own minds, and the examin….
... a nation to be strong, must be united; to be united, must be equal in condition; to be equal in condition, must be similar inhabits and feeling; ….
Opinions are not to be learned by rote, like the letters of an alphabet, or the words of a dictionary. They are conclusions to be formed, and formed ….
I am neither Jew nor Gentile, Mohammedan nor Theist; I am but a member of the human family, and would accept of truth by whomsoever offered -- that t….
Trust me, there are as many ways of living as there are men, and one is no more fit to lead another, than a bird to lead a fish, or a fish a quadrupe….
The knowledge of one generation is the ignorance of the next..
The world is full of religion, and full of misery and crime..
Credulity is always a ridiculous, often a dangerous failing: it has made of many a clever man, a fool; and of many a good man, a knave..