“Our civilization is still in a middle stage, scarcely beast, in that it is no longer wholly guided by instinct; scarcely human, in that it is not yet wholly guided by reason”
“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.”
