"We ought not to judge superior men without reference to the spirit of their age. This is an influence from which they cannot escape, and so far as it extenuates their errors it ought to be pleaded in their favour."

“Almost every faith can point to its rejoicing martyrs.”

“Knowledge once gained casts a faint light beyond its own immediate boundaries.”

“he most fatal error that could be committed by the leaders of religious thought is the attempt to force into their own age conceptions which have lived their life, and come to their natural end in preceding ages.”

“Christ found the religions of the world oppressed almost to suffocation by the load of formulas piled upon them by the priesthood. He removed the load, and rendered respiration free. He cared little for forms and ceremonies, which had ceased to be the raiment of man's spiritual life. To that life he looked, and it he sought to restore.”

“That there were 'weeds' in the Bible requiring to be kept out of sight was to me... a new revelation. I take little pleasure in dwelling upon the errors and blemishes of a book rendered venerable to me by intrinsic wisdom and imperishable associations. But...when its passages are invoked to justify the imposition of a yoke, irksome because unnatural, we are driven in self-defence to be critical.”

“nowledge and progress are the fruits of action.”