Childhood Itself Is Scarcely More Lovely Than

Misfortune Is Never Mournful To The Soul That Accepts It; For Such Do Always See That Every Cloud Is An Angel's Face. Every Man Deems That He Has Precisely The Trials And Temptations Which Are The Hardest Of All Others For Him To Bear; But They Are So, Simply Because They Are The Very Ones He Most Needs.

We Must Not Forget That All Great Revolutions And Reformations Would Look Mean And Meagre If Examined In Detail As They Occurred At The Time.

Even If Nothing Worse Than Wasted Mental Effort Could Be Laid To The Charge Of Theology, That Alone Ought To Be Sufficient To Banish It From The Earth ... What A Vast Amount Of Labour And Learning Has Been Expended, As Uselessly As Emptying Shallow Puddles Into Sieves! How Much Intellect Has Been Employed Mousing After Texts, To Sustain Preconceived Doctrines!

In The First Place, The Government Ought Not To Be Invested With Power To Control The Affections, Any More Than The Consciences Of Citizens. A Man Has At Least As Good A Right To Choose His Wife, As He Has To Choose His Religion. His Taste May Not Suit His Neighbors; But So Long As His Deportment Is Correct, They Have No Right To Interfere With His Concerns.

The Existence Of Very Pious Feelings, In Conjunction With Intolerance, Cruelty, And Selfish Policy, Has Never Ceased To Surprise And Perplex Those Who Have Viewed It Calmly From A Distance. ... It Is Impossible To Exaggerate The Evil Work Theology Has Done In The World. What Destruction Of The Beautiful Monuments Of Past Ages, What Waste Of Life, What Disturbance Of Domestic And Social Happiness, What Perverted Feelings, What Blighted Hearts, Have Always Marked Its Baneful Progress!