“These savages and their false gods! I grow weary of them. Yet they are necessary; the priests and the gods of slaves always fight on the side of the Masters. It is a rule of nature.”

Source: Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937), p. 39, with a quote from Galatians, IV, 6-8.

Source: Radical Christian Discipleship (2012), p. 41

Source: The Moon is a Harsh Mistress

Why I Am an Agnostic (1896)
Context: Suppose we had a man in this country who could control the wind, the rain and lightning, and suppose we elected him to govern these things, and suppose that he allowed whole States to dry and wither, and at the same time wasted the rain in the sea. Suppose that he allowed the winds to destroy cities and to crush to shapelessness thousands of men and women, and allowed the lightnings to strike the life out of mothers and babes. What would we say? What would we think of such a savage? And yet, according to the theologians, this is exactly the course pursued by God.

The Almost Perfect State (1921)
Context: Infancy is not what it is cracked up to be. The child seems happy all the time to the adult, because the adult knows that the child is untouched by the real problems of life; if the adult were similarly untouched he is sure that he would be happy. But children, not knowing that they are having an easy time, have a good many hard times. Growing and learning and obeying the rules of their elders, or fighting against them, are not easy things to do.

Source: Sixth Column (1949; originally serialized in 1941), Chapter 5 (p. 57)

Source: The Golden Bough (1890), Chapter 3, Sympathetic Magic (See also: the Noble savage).

Source: No Treason (1867–1870), No. I, p. 9