Agnosticism simply means that a man shall not say he knows or believes that for which he has no grounds read more

Agnosticism simply means that a man shall not say he knows or believes that for which he has no grounds for professing to believe.

Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither.

Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither.

The church is the great lost and found department.

The church is the great lost and found department.

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

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

to be nobody-but-myself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make me everybody else means, read more

to be nobody-but-myself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make me everybody else means, to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight, and never stop fighting.

I hope I never get so old I get religious.

I hope I never get so old I get religious.

Science has done more for the development of western civilization in one hundred years than Christianity did in eighteen hundred read more

Science has done more for the development of western civilization in one hundred years than Christianity did in eighteen hundred years.

I don't believe in God but I'm very interested in her.

I don't believe in God but I'm very interested in her.

The human understanding is no dry light, but receives infusion from the will and affections; which proceed sciences which may read more

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.