“The worst moment for an atheist is when he is really thankful and has no one to thank.”
“If it be true (as it certainly is) that a man can feel exquisite happiness in skinning a cat, then the religious philosopher can only draw one of two deductions. He must either deny the existence of God, as all atheists do; or he must deny the present union between God and man, as all Christians do. The new theologians seem to think it a highly rationalistic solution to deny the cat.”
“I do not feel any contempt for an atheist, who is often a man limited and constrained by his own logic to a very sad simplification.”
“The Declaration of Independence dogmatically bases all rights on the fact that God created all men equal; and it is right; for if they were not created equal, they were certainly evolved unequal. There is no basis for democracy except in a dogma about the divine origin of man.”
“What are blue-stockings?' asked Tommy.Naturally you don't know,' replied the other. 'If you did, you would sympathize more with Bluebeard. They were ladies who were always reading books. They even read them aloud.”
“In a word, God paints in many colors; but he never paints so gorgeously, I had almost said so gaudily, as when He paints in white. In a sense our age has realized this fact, and expressed it in our sullen costume. For if it were really true that white was a blank and colorless thing, negative and non-committal, then white would be used instead of black and grey for the funereal dress of this pessimistic period. Which is not the case.Meanwhile I could not find my chalk.”