"The devil personifies not the nature that is around us but the nature that is within us- the infinitely ferocious and cunning prehuman creature that is still within us, sealed in the subconscious cellars of the psyche."

"In man's life, the absence of an essential component usually leads to the adoption of a substitute. The substitute is usually embraced with vehemence and extremism, for we have to convince ourselves that what we took as second choice is the best there ever was. Thus blind faith is to a considerable extent a substitute for the lost faith in ourselves; insatiable desire a substitute for hope; accumulation a substitute for growth; fervent hustling a substitute for purposeful action; and pride a substitute for an unattainable self-respect."

"Those of little faith are of little hatred."

"Faith in a holy cause is to a considerable extent a substitute for the lost faith in ourselves."

"When we debunk a fanatical faith or prejudice, we do not strike at the root of fanaticism. We merely prevent its leaking out at a certain point, with the likely result that it will leak out at some other point. Thus by denigrating prevailing beliefs and loyalties, the militant man of words unwittingly creates in the disillusioned masses a hunger for faith. For the majority of people cannot endure the barrenness and futility of their lives unless they have some ardent dedication, or some passionate pursuit in which they can lose themselves. Thus, in spite of himself, the scoffing man of words becomes the precursor of a new faith."

"It needs fanatical faith to rationalize our cowardice."

"It is now quite lawful for a Catholic woman to avoid pregnancy by a resort to mathematics, though she is still forbidden to resort to physics or chemistry."

"If a man would follow, today, the teachings of the Old Testament, he would be a criminal. If he would follow the teachings of the new, he would be insane."

"My mother was a Theosophist.. my father
prayed directly to the god of war..
and I.. am a softshelled Methodist."

"I love you when you bow in your mosque, kneel in your temple, pray in
your church. For you and I are sons of one religion, and it is the
spirit."

"Religion has not civilized man, man has civilized religion."

"There seems to be a terrible misunderstanding on the part of a great many people to the effect that when you cease to believe you may cease to behave."

"If everybody knows such-and-such, then it ain't so, by at
least ten thousand to one."

"John Wesley said that if you give up the witchcraft, you must give up the Bible. He is right. The choice is easy for me."

"The neer to the church, the further from God."

"It takes less time to do things right that to explain why you did it wrong."

"How many observe Christ's birthday! How few, his precepts! O! 'tis easier to keep holidays than commandments."

"Scientific criticism has no nobler task than to shatter false beliefs."

"But who prays for Satan? Who, in eighteen centuries, has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner that needed it most?"

"The church is the great lost and found department."

"The prevailing legal and moral views of a time are held not only by those whom they benefit but by those, too, who appear to suffer from them. Their domination is expressed in that fact- that the people from whom they claim sacrifice accept them."

"Take this kiss upon the brow! And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow--
You are not wrong who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream."

"Even a band of angels can turn ugly and start looting if enough angels are unemployed and hanging around the Pearly Gates convinced that all the succubi own all the liquor stores in Heaven."

"The total absence of humor from the Bible is one of the most singular
things in all literature."

"If the music string is too taut it will snap.
If it is too lose.. it will not play.
Pondering this, Buddha took the middle path."

"If a man would follow, today, the teachings of the Old Testament, he would be a criminal. If he would follow strictly the teachings of the New, he would be insane."

"Nothing as mundane as mere evidence can be allowed to threaten a vision so deeply satisfying."

"The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because generally they are the same people."

"We must do our business faithfully, without trouble or disquiet,
recalling our mind to God mildly, and with tranquility, as often as
we
find it wandering from him."

"The human understanding is no dry light, but receives infusion from
the will and affections; which proceed sciences which may be called
sciences as one would. For what a man had rather were
true he more readily believes. Therefore he rejects difficult things
from impatience of research; sober things, because they narrow hope;
the deeper things of nature, from superstition; the light of
experience, from arrogance and pride; things not commonly believed,
out of deference to the opinion of the vulgar. Numberless in short
are the ways, and sometimes imperceptible, in which the affections
color and infect the understanding."

"I always divide people into two groups. Those who live by what they
know to be a lie, and those who live by what they believe, falsely,
to
be the truth."

"Faith, enthusiasm, and passionate intensity in general are substitutes for the self-confidence born of experience and the possession of skill. Where there is the necessary skill to move mountains there is no need for the faith that moves mountains."

"The Church says that the Earth is flat, but I know that it is round.
For I have seen the shadow on the moon and I have more faith in the
Shadow than in the Church."

"The most costly of all follies is to believe passionately in the palpably not true. It is the chief occupation of mankind."

"The coziness between church and state is good for the state and bad for the church."

"Destiny is but a phrase of the weak human heart - the dark apology for every error. The strong and virtuous admit no destiny. On earth conscience guides; in heaven God watches. And destiny is but the phantom we invoke to silence the one and dethrone the other."

"Only he who handles his ideas lightly is master of his ideas, and only he who is master of his ideas is not enslaved by them."

"The biblical account of Noah's Ark and the Flood is perhaps the most implausible story for fundamentalists to defend. Where, for example, while loading his ark, did Noah find penguins and polar bears in Palestine?"

"Beliefs die with the body (we are not our minds)
(Nevertheless these beliefs are stored in the akashic records)."

"The Bible looks like it started out as a game of Mad Libs."