"Religion did not exist for the saving of souls but for the preservation and welfare of society, and in all that was necessary to this end every man had to take his part, or break with the domestic and political community to which he belonged."

"In all the antique religions, mythology takes the place of dogma that is, the sacred lore of priests and people... and these stories afford the only explanation that is offered of the precepts of religion and the prescribed rules of ritual."

"We are so accustomed to think of religion as a thing between individual men and God that we can hardly enter into the idea of a religion in which a whole nation in its national organisation appears as the religious unit."

"Thus a man was born into a fixed relation to certain gods as surely as he was born into a relation to his fellow-men and his religion... was simply one side of the general scheme of conduct prescribed for him by his position as a member of society."

"I've always said that in politics, your enemies can't hurt you, but your friends will kill you."

"Death has a tendency to encourage a depressing view of war."

"During the Cold War, we gathered information by listening to the Soviets, taking pictures of the Soviets, and we allowed our human intelligence to decline."

"But I don't want massive layoffs of anyone - public or private. We are planning on shrinking government through attrition and reform, not through random pink slips."