Society and the World

Morality is a venereal disease. Its primary stage is called virtue; its secondary stage, boredom; its tertiary stage, syphilis.

The most important human endeavor is the striving for morality in our actions. Our inner balance and even our very existence depend on it. Only morality in our actions can give beauty and dignity to life.

Anyone who has ever looked into the glazed eyes of a soldier dying on the battlefield will think hard before starting a war.

Wealth is the ability to fully experience life.

It's easy to let life deteriorate into making a living instead of making a life.

If I had my life to live over again, I'd be a plumber.

To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children...to leave the world a better place...to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.

Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.

How strange is the lot of us mortals! Each of us is here for a brief sojourn; for what purpose he knows not, though he senses it. But without deeper reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other people.

Religions die when they are proved to be true. Science is the record of dead religions.

Everyone who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the Universe – a spirit vastly superior to that of man…

A cult is a religion with no political power.

To devote your life to the good of all and to the happiness of all is religion. Whatever you do for your own sake is not religion.

Freedom prospers when religion is vibrant and the rule of law under God is acknowledged.

Freedom prospers when religion is vibrant and the rule of law under God is acknowledged.

Where knowledge ends, religion begins.

Science can purify religion from error and superstition. Religion can purify science from idolatry and false absolutes.

I do not know how to teach philosophy without becoming a disturber of established religion.

A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other hand, they do less easily move against him, believing that he has the gods on his side.

The Americans combine the notions of religion and liberty so intimately in their minds that it is impossible to make them conceive of one without the other.

I love you when you bow in your mosque, kneel in your temple, pray in your church. For you and I are sons of one religion, and it is the spirit.

He who possesses art and science has religion; he who does not possess them, needs religion.

Religion is just mind control.

It is possible that mankind is on the threshold of a golden age; but, if so, it will be necessary first to slay the dragon that guards the door, and this dragon is religion.