Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.
Robert Green Ingersoll
Anger is a wind which blows out the lamp of the mind.
In nature there are neither rewards nor punishments; there are consequences.
The greatest test of courage on earth is to bear defeat without losing heart.
Tolerance is giving to every other human being every right that you claim for yourself.
Hope is the only bee that makes honey without flowers.
A great man does not seek applause or place; he seeks for truth; he seeks the road to happiness, and what he ascertains, he gives to others.
In the night of death, hope sees a star, and listening love can hear the rustle of a wing.
Give to every human being every right that you claim for yourself.
It is a thousand times better to have common sense without education than to have education without common sense.
In the presence of eternity, the mountains are as transient as the clouds.
When the will defies fear, when duty throws the gauntlet down to fate, when honor scorns to compromise with death - that is heroism.
Happiness is not a reward - it is a consequence. Suffering is not a punishment - it is a result.
Kindness is the sunshine in which virtue grows.
What light is to the eyes - what air is to the lungs - what love is to the heart, liberty is to the soul of man.
A great man is a torch in the darkness, a beacon in superstition's night, an inspiration and a prophecy.
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.
Hope is the only universal liar who never loses his reputation for veracity.
Every man is dishonest who lives upon the labor of others, no matter if he occupies a throne.
Reason, observation, and experience; the holy trinity of science.
In the republic of mediocrity, genius is dangerous.
Colleges are places where pebbles are polished and diamonds are dimmed.
The time to be happy is now, and the place to be happy is here.
Courage without conscience is a wild beast.
It is a blessed thing that in every age some one has had the individuality enough and courage enough to stand by his own convictions.
There is a quiet about the life of a farmer, and the hope of a serene old age, that no other business or profession can promise.
I will not attack your doctrines nor your creeds if they accord liberty to me. If they hold thought to be dangerous - if they aver that doubt is a crime, then I attack them one and all, because they enslave the minds of men.
They who gain applause and power by pandering to the mistakes, the prejudices and passions of the multitude are the enemies of liberty.
I am the inferior of any man whose rights I trample under foot.
Wherever the sword of rebellion is drawn to protect the rights of man, I am a rebel. Wherever the sword of rebellion is drawn to give man liberty, to clothe him in all his just rights, I am on the side of that rebellion.
I would rather live and love where death is king than have eternal life where love is not.
In order to appreciate a great man, we must know his surroundings. We must understand the scope of the drama in which he played - the part he acted - and we must also know his audience.
I say that no man can be greater than the man who bravely and heroically sacrifices his life for the good of others. No man can be greater than the one who meets death face to face, and yet will not shrink from what he believes to be his highest duty.
Few rich men own their property; their property owns them.
The true civilization is where every man gives to every other every right that he claims for himself.
Religion can never reform mankind because religion is slavery.
Justice should remove the bandage from her eyes long enough to distinguish between the vicious and the unfortunate.
Surely there is grandeur in knowing that in the realm of thought, at least, you are without a chain; that you have the right to explore all heights and depth; that there are no walls nor fences, nor prohibited places, nor sacred corners in all the vast expanse of thought.
The inspiration of the Bible depends upon the ignorance of the gentleman who reads it.
Beauty is not all there is of poetry. It must contain the truth. It is not simply an oak, rude and grand, neither is it simply a vine. It is both. Around the oak of truth runs the vine of beauty.
Insolence is not logic; epithets are the arguments of malice.
In our era, the road to holiness necessarily passes through the world of action.
All the punishment in the world will not reform a man, unless he knows that he who inflicts it upon him does it for the sake of reformation, and really and truly loves him, and has his good at heart. Punishment inflicted for gratifying the appetite makes man afraid but debases him.
We need men with moral courage to speak and write their real thoughts, and to stand by their convictions, even to the very death.
Intelligence, integrity and courage are the great pillars that support the State. Above all, the citizens of a free nation should honor the brave and independent man - the man of stainless integrity, of will and intellectual force.
The doctrine of immortality rests upon human affection. We love; therefore, we wish to live.
When men are prosperous, they are in love with life. Nature grows beautiful, the arts begin to flourish, there is work for painter and sculptor, the poet is born, the stage is erected - and this life with which men are in love is represented in a thousand forms.
Voltaire lighted a torch and gave to others the sacred flame. The light still shines and will as long as man loves liberty and seeks for truth.
Science has nothing in common with religion. Facts and miracles never did and never will agree.
A fact never went into partnership with a miracle. Truth scorns the assistance of wonders. A fact will fit every other fact in the universe, and that is how you can tell whether it is or is not a fact. A lie will not fit anything except another lie.
