Popular poets are the parish priests of the Muse, retailing her ancient divinations to a long since converted public.

Man is as full of potentiality as he is of impotence.

Prayer, among sane people, has never superseded practical efforts to secure the desired end.

Men almost universally have acknowledged a Providence, but that fact has had no force to destroy natural aversions and fears in the presence of events.

To understand oneself is the classic form of consolation; to elude oneself is the romantic.

Reason and happiness are like other flowers- they wither when plucked.

Reason in my philosophy is only a harmony among irrational impulses.

Each religion, by the help of more or less myth which it takes more or less seriously, proposes some method of fortifying the human soul and enabling it to make its peace with its destiny.

Matters of religion should never be matters of controversy. We neither argue with a lover about his taste, nor condemn him, if we are just, for knowing so human a passion.

Religion is the love of life in the consciousness of impotence.