"Religion is regarded by the common people as true ,
by the wise as false,
and by rulers as useful."
— Seneca the Younger (4? B.C.E. - 65 C.E.)

"I can only assume that I am paying off karma
at a vastly accelerated rate."
— Susan Ivanova

“Our reliance is in the spirit which prized liberty
as the heritage of all men, in all lands everywhere.
Destroy this spirit
and you have planted the seeds of despotism
at your own doors.
Familiarize yourselves with the chains of bondage
and you prepare your own limbs to wear them.
Accustom to trample on the rights of others
and you have lost the genius of your own
independence and become the fit subjects
of the first cunning tyrant who rises among you."
— Abraham Lincoln

"I believe in perilous liberty over quiet servitude."
—    Thomas Jefferson

"Experience should teach us to be most on our guard
to protect liberty
when the government's purposes are beneficial.
The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious
 encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but
without understanding."
— Louis D. Brandeis

"Show me a church
which takes the Golden Rule as its only creed
and I will unite with it."
—    Abraham Lincoln,
explaining why he never attended religious services.

"The only universal message in science fiction is this:
There exist minds that think as well as you do, but
differently.” — Unknown
Niven’s corollary: “The gene-tampered turkey
you're talking to isn't necessarily one of them."
— Larry Niven

“There are a wealth of possibilities
for explanations of this world's phenomena.
The unknown shifts perceptibly
to the extent that we strain for natural answers,
remains static if we accept the supernatural.” 
— R. Leland Waldrip