It is well for people who think to change their minds occasionally in order to keep them clean. For those who do not think, it is best at least to rearrange their prejudices once in a while.

The word ‘religion’ has acquired a very bad name among those who really love truth, justice, charity. It also exhales the musty odor of sanctimony and falsehood.

Bryan – a great friend of mine, by the way – had a Neanderthal type of head, Burbank says. As to Riley, he has not even the oratorical skill of Bryan. The whole movement is based on the poor whites of the south.

The integrity of one’s own mind is of infinitely more value than adherence to any creed or system. We must choose between a dead faith belonging to the past and a living, growing ever-advancing science belonging to the future.

Science, which is only another name for truth, now holds religious charlatans, self-deceivers and God agents in a certain degree of check – agents and employees, I mean, of a mythical, medieval, man-made God, anthropomorphic in constitution.

The idea that a good God would send people to a burning hell is utterly damnable to me – the raving of insanity, superstition gone to seed! I want no part of such a God.

I firmly believe, from what I have seen, that this is the chosen spot of all this earth as far as nature is concerned.

The secret of improved plant breeding, apart from scientific knowledge, is love.

I am an infidel. I know what an infidel is, and that’s what I am.

Every child should have mud pies, grasshoppers, water bugs, tadpoles, frogs, mud turtles, elderberries, wild strawberries, acorns, chestnuts, trees to climb. Brooks to wade, water lilies, woodchucks, bats, bees, butterflies, various animals to pet, hayfields, pine-cones, rocks to roll, sand, snakes, huckleberries and hornets; and any child who has been deprived of these has been deprived of the best part of education.