If I were personally to define religion I would say that it is a bandage that man has invented to protect a soul made bloody by circumstance. (attributed)

Assure a man that he has a soul and then frighten him with old wives' tales as to what is to become of him afterward, and you have hooked a fish, a mental slave

[Honors: At his funeral, Charlie Chaplin read Dreiser's poem,] The Road I Came. ... American writing before and after his time differed almost as much as biology before and after Darwin. He was a man of large originality, of profound feeling and of unshakable courage. All of us who write are better off because he lived, worked and hoped.

Words are but the vague shadows of the volumes we mean.  Little audible links, they are, chaining together great inaudible feelings and purposes.

Let no one underestimate the need of pity. We live in a stony universe whose hard, brilliant forces rage fiercely.

Words are but the vague shadows of the volumes we mean. Little audible links, they are, chaining together great inaudible feelings and purposes.