The theologian who has no joy in his work is not a theologian at all. Sulky faces, morose thoughts and boring ways of speaking are intolerable in this science.

Doctrine is nothing but the skin of truth set up and stuffed.

First, I hate all theological controversy: it is wearing to the temper, and is I believe (at all events when viva voce) worse than useless.

The cure for false theology is motherwit. Forget your books and traditions, and obey your moral perceptions at this hour.

The most tedious of all discourses are on the subject of the Supreme Being.

Hypotheses are only the pieces of scaffolding which are erected round a building during the course of construction, and which are taken away as soon as the edifice is completed.

Theology is an attempt to explain a subject by men who do not understand it. The intent is not to tell the truth but to satisfy the questioner.

Theology in religion is what poisons are in food.

Theology emerged not as a course of knowledge but as a feast of homily and imagination and exaggeration in which every man could find his image and his portion. And yet there were limits.

Theological religion is the source of all imaginable follies and disturbances; it is the parent of fanaticism and civil discord; it is the enemy of mankind.