“at one time, a freethinker was a man who had been brought up in the conceptions of
religion, law and morality, who reached freethought only after conflict and difficulty. But now a
new type of born freethinkers has appeared, who grow up without so much as hearing that
there used to be laws of morality, or religion, that authorities existed... In the old days, you
see, if a man - a Frenchman, for instance- wished to get an education, he would have set to
work to study the classics, the theologians, the tragedians, historians and philosophers- and
you can realize all the intellectual labour involved. But nowadays he goes straight for the
literature of negation, rapidly assimilates the essence of the science of negation, and thinks
he's finished.
“I have often thought that if heaven had given me choice of my position and calling, it should have been on a rich spot of earth, well watered, and near a good market for the productions of the garden. No occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earth, and no lucture comparable to that of the garden. Sucha a variety of subjeccts, some one always coming to perfection, the failure of one thing repaired by the succes of another, and instead of one harvest a continued one through the year. Under a total want of demand except for our family table, I am still devoted to the garden.”
“For me, life is continuously being hungry. The meaning of life is not simply to exist, to survive, but to go ahead, to go up, to achieve, to conquer.”
“It is not the best for us to lay embago on the industries that produce temptations. What we need to do is to compete, overcome and dominate the market with the products of our endurance. No battles we face, no crown will we win. No temptations exist, no conquerors are known.”
“Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns in to universal, rather than religion-specific, values... it requires that their proposals be subject to argument and amenable to reason.
Now I may be opposed to abortion for religious reasons, to take one example, but if I seek to pass a law banning the practice, I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or evoke God's will. I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all.”
“This idea of starting at the bottom and working one’s way up may appear to be sound, but the major objection to it is this— too many of those who begin at the bottom never manage to lift their heads high enough to be seen by opportunity, so they remain at the bottom. It should be remembered, also, that the outlook from the bottom is not so very bright or encouraging. It has a tendency to kill off ambition. We call it “getting into a rut,” which means that we accept our fate because we form the habit of daily routine, a habit that finally becomes so strong we cease to try to throw it off. And that is another reason why it pays to start one or two steps above the bottom. By so doing one forms the habit of looking around, of observing how others get ahead, of seeing opportunity, and of embracing it without hesitation.”
“Can a mortal ask questions which God finds unanswerable? Quite easily, I should think. All nonsense questions are unanswerable. How many hours are in a mile? Is yellow square or round? Probably half the questions we ask - half our great theological and metaphysical problems - are like that.”
“A moderately bad man knows he is not very good: a thoroughly bad man thinks he is alright. This is common sense really. You understand sleep when you are awake, not well you are sleeping.”
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