Famous Quotes & Sayings

Carlos Fuentes

In Latin America, even atheists are Catholics.

C. S. Lewis

The notion that everyone would like Christianity to be true, and therefore all atheists are brave men who have accepted the defeat of all their deepest desires, is simply impudent nonsense.

Charlie Chaplin

By simple common sense I don't believe in God, in none.

Charles Dickens

I believe the spreading of Catholicism to be the most horrible means of political and social degradation left in the world.

Charles Stross

I'm an atheist .I was raised in British reform Judaism, which is not like American reform Judaism, much less any other strain of organised religion. So: no cults here.

Charles Stross

I wish I was still an atheist. Believing I was born into a harsh, uncaring cosmos – in which my existence was a random roll of the dice and I was destined to die and rot and then be gone forever – was infinitely more comforting than the truth. Because the truth is that my God is coming back. When he arrives I’ll be waiting for him with a shotgun. And I’m keeping the last shell for myself.

Ricky Gervais

I never understood redemption when I was young. Even before I was an atheist, I always thought with the prodigal son, "well, why's he getting the special treatment?".

Ricky Gervais

I'd like to thank God for making me an atheist.

Ricky Gervais

Being an atheist makes someone a clearer thinking, fairer person. They [atheists] are not doing things to be rewarded in heaven; they're doing things because they're right, because they live by a moral code.

Thomas Merton

We have to have a deep, patient compassion for the fears of men and irrational mania of those who hate or condemn us.

Charles Dickens

Be guided, only by the healer of the sick, the raiser of the dead, the friend of all who were afflicted and forlorn, the patient Master who shed tears of compassion for our infirmities. We cannot but be right if we put all the rest away, and do everything in remembrance of Him. There is no vengeance and no infliction of suffering in His life, I am sure. There can be no confusion in following Him, and seeking for no other footsteps, I am certain!

Charles Dickens

And could I look upon her without compassion, seeing her punishment in the ruin she was, in her profound unfitness for this earth on which she was placed, in the vanity of sorrow which had become a master mania, like the vanity of penitence, the vanity of remorse, the vanity of unworthiness, and other monstrous vanities that have been curses in this world?

Richard G. Scott

Just when all seems to be going right, challenges often come in multiple doses applied simultaneously. When those trials are not consequences of your disobedience, they are evidence that the Lord feels you are prepared to grow more. He therefore gives you experiences that stimulate growth, understanding, and compassion which polish you for your everylasting benefit.

Dave Davies

We obviously need more love in the world. And we obviously need more compassion and understanding. Our leaders need to really address these issues properly now.

David R. Brower

We may learn anew what compassion and beauty are, and pause to listen to the Earth's music.

Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Sometimes, in difficult circumstances, one can confuse compassion with love.

Jane Austen

Have a little compassion on my nerves. You tear them to pieces.

Jane Yolen

In fantasy stories we learn to understand the differences of others, we learn compassion for those things we cannot fathom, we learn the importance of keeping our sense of wonder. The strange worlds that exist in the pages of fantastic literature teach us a tolerance of other people and places and engender an openness toward new experience. Fantasy puts the world into perspective in a way that 'realistic' literature rarely does. It is not so much an escape from the here-and-now as an expansion of each reader's horizons.

Cesare Pavese

A consoling thought: what matters is not what we do, but the spirit in which we do it. Others suffer too; so much so that there is nothing in the world but suffering; the problem is simply to keep a clear conscience.

Isaac Marion

We are where we are, however we got here. What matters is where we go next.

Bruce Willis

It doesn't matter how many people I've killed. What matters is how I get along with the people who are still alive.

Charlie Munger

We've got great flexibility and a certain discipline in terms of not doing some foolish thing just to be active - discipline in avoiding just doing any damn thing just because you can't stand inactivity.

Dana Gioia

Once an author finishes a poem, he becomes merely another reader. I may remember what I intended to put into a text, but what matters is what a reader actually finds there which is usually something both more and less than the poet planned.

David Horowitz

In politics intentions count for nothing; actions are what matter.

Basil Bunting

All you can usually say about a poem or a picture is, 'Look at it, listen to it.' Whether you listen to a piece of music or a poem, or look at a picture or a jug or a piece of sculpture, what matters about it is not what it has in common with others of its kind, but what is singularly its own.

Edna O'Brien

What matters is the imaginative truth.

Barbara Tuchman

Above all, discard the irrelevant.