That many good men have believed this strange fable [Christianity], and lived very good lives under that belief (for credulity is not a crime) is what I have no doubt of. In the first place, <b>they were educated to believe it, and they would have believed anything else in the same manner</b>. There are also many who have been so enthusiastically enraptured by what they conceived to be the infinite love of God to man, in making a sacrifice of himself, that the vehemence of the idea has forbidden and deterred them from examining into the absurdity and profaneness of the story.

Boys are marvellous creatures. Perhaps they will sink below the brutes; perhaps they will attain to a woman’s tenderness.

Conceit is God’s gift to little men.

I'm saying that some men are saints. Some are happy being meek and humble and unambitious. Some men are born content to be second-best.

The greatest miracle Christianity has achieved in America is that the black man in white Christian hands has not grown violent. It is a miracle that 22 million black people have not risen up against their oppressors – in which they would have been justified by all moral criteria, and even by the democratic tradition! It is a miracle that a nation of black people has so fervently continued to believe in a turn-the-other-cheek and heaven-for-you-after-you-die philosophy! It is a miracle that the American black people have remained a peaceful people, while catching all the centuries of hell that they have caught, here in white man’s heaven! The miracle is that the white man’s puppet Negro ‘leaders’, his preachers and the educated Negroes laden with degrees, and others who have been allowed to wax fat off their black poor brothers, have been able to hold the black masses quiet until now.

Whatever makes men good christians, makes them good citizens.

Men have always a choice - if not whether, then how, they may endure.

It was a useful reminder that all men, even the most seemingly cold-blooded, have a core of decency, and that if their heart is touched, they are capable of changing.

Benevolence is love to <i>all</i> men. It is to know <i>all</i> men.

So as long as we live among men, let us cherish humanity.

Actually, the situation was intolerable. But then it was surprising how much intolerableness a man could tolerate.

Even in adversity, nobility shines through, when a man endures repeated and severe misfortune with patience, not owing to insensibility but from generosity and greatness of soul.

Luckily for parents, children have great resilience and a generous ability to forgive.

Boys believe nothing can harm them, his doubt whispered. Grown men know better.