Happiness is the only good. The time to be happy is now. The place to be happy is here. The way to be happy is to make others so.

Secularism is a religion, a religion that is understood. It has no mysteries, no mumblings, no priests, no ceremonies, no falsehoods, no miracles, and no persecutions.

Religion can never reform mankind because religion is slavery.

Happiness is not a reward - it is a consequence. Suffering is not a punishment - it is a result.

Do you not know that every religion in the world has declared every other religion a fraud? Yes, we all know it. That is the time all religions tell the truth - each of the other.

Superstition is, always has been, and forever will be, the foe of progress, the enemy of education and the assassin of freedom.

The myth of hell represents all the meanness, all the revenge, all the selfishness, all the cruelty, all the hatred, all the infamy of which the heart of man is capable.

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

The intellectual advancement of man depends on how often he can exchange an old superstition for a new truth.

There can be but little liberty on earth while men worship a tyrant in heaven.

Reason, observation, and experience; the holy trinity of science.

I asked my publisher what would happen if he sold all the copies of my book he'd printed. He said "I'll just print another ten.

A writer can do without food for a few hours, but not without the sight of books.

I'm not the protagonist of a novel or anything...I'm just a normal college student who likes to read...But...If I were to write a book with me as the main character...It would be......A tragedy.

I take every job on its merits.

The finest flowers are those transplanted, for transplanting means difficulty, a readjusting to new conditions, and through the effort put forth to find adjustment does the plant progress.

in a way it doesn't matter whether you open doors or close them, you still end up in a box.

The appetites will rule if the mind is vacant.

My grandparents on my mom's side played in a mandolin orchestra. So when I hear mandolins, I automatically think of them.

Virtue with some is nothing but successful temerity.

Poet and sculptor, do the work, / Nor let the modish painter shirk