“I believe that truth only is beneficial, and error, from whatever source, and under whatever name, is pernicious to man, I consider no place too holy, no subject too sacred, for man’s earnest investigation.”

“The savage, ignorant of the mechanism of a watch, attributes the ticking to a spirit. The so-called civilized man, equally ignorant of the mechanism of the universe, and the laws which govern it, ascribes it to the same erroneous cause.”

“Do you tell me that the Bible is against our rights? Then I say that our claims do not rest upon a book written no one knows when, or by whom. Books and opinions, no matter from whom they came, if they are in opposition to human rights, are nothing but dead letters.”

— Ernestine Rose (1856), reply to audience member, at Seventh National Women’s Rights Convention, that the Bible submitted women to men [1]

“The universe is one vast chemical laboratory, in constant operation, by her internal forces. The laws or principles of attraction, cohesion, and repulsion, produce in never-ending succession the phenomena of composition, decomposition, and recomposition. The how, we are too ignorant to understand, to modest to presume, and too honest to profess. Had man been a patient and impartial inquirer, and not with childish presumption attributed everything he could not understand, to supernatural causes, given names to hide his ignorance, but observed the operations of nature, he would undoubtedly have know more, been wiser, and happier.”

— Ernestine Rose (1861), “A Defense of Atheism”, Apr 10 [2]

“The atheist says to the honest conscientious believer, though I cannot believe in your god whom you have failed to demonstrate, I believe in man; if I have no faith in your religion I have faith, unbounded, unshaken faith in the principle of right, of justice, and humanity. Whatever good you are willing to do for the sake of your god, I am full as willing to do for the sake of man.”

— Ernestine Rose (1861), “A Defense of Atheism”, Apr 10 [2]