Quotes from Lemuel K. Washburn

Religion is no more the parent of morality than an incubator is the mother of a chicken.

If there were no ministers and no priests, how long would there be any churches?

If we do not need to worship God six days in the week why do we need to worship him on the seventh?

Honesty is never seen sitting astride the fence.

The man who wants to be an angel is never in a hurry to begin.

The man who gets on his knees has not learned the right use of his legs.

If God exists, what objection can he have to saying so?

Most men would kill the truth if truth would kill their religion.

No creed can be stretched to the size of truth; no church can be made as large as man.

People who rely most on God rely least on themselves.

A dogma will thrive in soil where the truth could not get root.

Honesty is never seen sitting astride the fence.

It is necessary to distinguish between the virtue and the vice of obedience.

Religion is no more the parent of morality than an incubator is the mother of a chicken.

History shows that there is nothing so easy to enslave and nothing so hard to emancipate as ignorance, hence it becomes the double enemy of civilization. By its servility it is the prey of tyranny, and by its credulity it is the foe of enlightenment.

If wisdom and diamonds grew on the same tree we could soon tell how much men loved wisdom.

The true man walks the earth as the stars walk the heavens, grandly obedient to those laws which are implanted in his nature.