Famous Quotes & Sayings

Boris Pasternak

What you don't understand is that it is possible to be an atheist, it is possible not to know if God exists or why He should, and yet to believe that man does not live in a state of nature but in history, and that history as we know it now began with Christ, it was founded by Him on the Gospels.

Arthur Schopenhauer

Religions are like fireflies. They require darkness in order to shine.

Aristophanes

Surely you do not believe in the gods. What's your argument? Where's your proof?

Brian Williams

Because we are no different from any animal, any insect or germule. We are not special, Cal. You, me, we all came from nothing, and that's exactly where we're all going one day, maybe soon, whether we like it or not.

Edward Young

By night an atheist half-believes in God.

Eliezer Yudkowsky

[...] intelligent people only have a certain amount of time (measured in subjective time spent thinking about religion) to become atheists. After a certain point, if you're smart, have spent time thinking about and defending your religion, and still haven't escaped the grip of Dark Side Epistemology, the inside of your mind ends up as an Escher painting.

Billy Joel

As an atheist you have to rationalize things... Then you have to try and make some sort of sense out of your problems. And if you try and find you can't, you have no choice but to be good and scared -- but that's okay!

Edward Gibbon

Our ignorance is God; what we know is science.

Edmond de Goncourt

If there is a God, atheism must seem to Him as less of an insult than religion.

David Hume

A little philosophy makes a man an Atheist: a great deal converts him to religion

Edmund White

I'm an atheist, I always thought, 'This is it.' If there is going to be a heaven, it should be on earth. I feel much happier than most people. I'm fairly stoic about death, but I'm not keen on dying if it's going to be long and protracted. I don't have dark nights of the soul, except occasionally. I'm such a little busy bee.

Edgar Rice Burroughs

The whole fabric of our religion is based on superstitious beliefin lies that have been foisted upon us for ages by those directly above us, to whose personal profit and aggrandizement it was to have us continue to believe as they wished us to believe.

Benjamin Franklin

My dear friend, do not imagine that I am vain enough to ascribe our success [Revolution] to any superiority . . . If it had not been for the justice of our cause, and the consequent interposition of Providence, in which we had faith, we must have been ruined. If I had ever before been an atheist, I should now have been convinced of the being and government of a Deity!

Barbara Walters

I don't know about you, but I can never get enough David Letterman.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali

You'll be pleased to hear, Christopher, that I am no longer a Muslim liberal but an atheist [....] I find that it obviates the necessity for any cognitive dissonance.

Arthur C. Clarke

Religion is a by-product of fear. For much of human history it may have been a necessary evil, but why was it more evil than necessary? Isn’t killing people in the name of god a pretty good definition of insanity?

Arthur C. Clarke

The greatest tragedy in mankind's entire history may be the hijacking of morality by religion.

Arthur C. Clarke

I don't believe in God but I'm very interested in her.

Arthur C. Clarke

Isn't killing people in the name of God a pretty good definition of insanity?

Arthur C. Clarke

One of the great tragedies of mankind is that morality has been hijacked by religion.

Dan Barker

People are invariably surprised to hear me say I am both an atheist and an agnostic, as if this somehow weakens my certainty. I usually reply with a question like, “Well, are you a Republican or an American?” The two words serve different concepts and are not mutually exclusive. Agnosticism addresses knowledge; atheism addresses belief. The agnostic says, “I don't have a knowledge that God exists.” The atheist says, “I don't have a belief that God exists.” You can say both things at the same time. Some agnostics are atheistic and some are theistic.

Dan Barker

Faith is a cop-out. If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can't be taken on its own merits. It is intellectual bankruptcy.

Dan Barker

Atheists are suffering from bad PR. What if Sesame Street had an atheist character?

Dan Barker

You believe in a book that has sticks turning into snakes, and you say we are the ones that need help?

Dan Barker

Isn't atheism just another religion?' No, it isn't. Atheism has no creeds, rituals, holy book, absolute moral code, origin myth, sacred spaces or shrines. It has no sin, divine judgment, forbidden words, prayer, worship, prophecy, group privileges, or anointed 'holy' leaders. Atheists don't believe in a transcendent world or supernatural afterlife. Most important, there is no orthodoxy in atheism.

Dan Barker

I'm proud to be an atheist - it helps me stand for so much more and fall for so much less.

Dan Barker

I am an atheist because there is no evidence for the existence of God. That should be all that needs to be said about it: no evidence, no belief.

Dan Barker

I have something to say to the religionist who feels atheists never say anything positive: You are an intelligent human being. Your life is valuable for its own sake. You are not second-class in the universe, deriving meaning and purpose from some other mind. You are not inherently evil—you are inherently human, possessing the positive rational potential to help make this a world of morality, peace and joy. Trust yourself.

Conor McGregor

I believe in believing. My coach John Kavanagh is a big atheist and he is always trying to persuade people to his way of thinking, and I think what a waste of energy. If people want to believe in this god, or that god, that's fine by me, believe away. But I think we can be our own gods. I believe in myself.

Elias Canetti

There can be no Creator, simply because his grief at the fate of his creation would be inconceivable and unendurable.

Arthur Hertzberg

When you turn the discussion onto talk of religion, you will soon start to reveal a whole range of views ranging from the ardent supporter to the ardent atheist.

Atheism is a disease of the mind caused by eating underdone philosophy

Charles Bukowski

For those who believe in God, most of the big questions are answered. But for those of us who can't readily accept the God formula, the big answers don't remain stone-written. We adjust to new conditions and discoveries. We are pliable. Love need not be a command nor faith a dictum. I am my own god. We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state, and our educational system. We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us.