Never to talk about oneself is a very refined form of hypocrisy.

I am surrounded by priests who repeat incessantly that their kingdom is not of this world, and yet they lay hands on everything they can get.

People to whom their daily life appears too empty and monotonous easily grow religious; this is comprehensible and excusable, only they have no right to demand religious sentiments from those whose daily life is not empty and monotonous.

A degree of culture, and assuredly a very high one, is attained when man rises above superstitions and religious notions and fears, and, for instance, no longer believes in guardian angels or in original sin, and has also ceased to talk of the salvation of his soul.

You cannot drag a man's conscience before any tribunal, and no one is answerable for his religious opinions to any power on earth.

Nothing renders a nation so despicable as religious despotism.