Quotes
Richard Dawkins on The Old Testament God
“The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.” – Richard Dawkins
Bertrand Russell on God’s Vanity
“And if there were a God, I think it very unlikely that He would have such an uneasy vanity as to be offended by those who doubt His existence. ” -Bertrand Russell
Francis Bacon on Moral Virtue
“Atheism leaves a man to sense, to philosophy, to natural piety, to laws, to reputation; all of which may be guides to an outward moral virtue, even if religion vanished; but religious superstition dismounts all these and erects an absolute monarchy in the minds of men. ” – Francis Bacon
Samuel Clemens on Church
“A man is accepted into a church for what he believes and he is turned out for what he knows”. – Samuel Clemens
George Bernard Shaw on Faith
“The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one. The happiness of credulity is a cheap and dangerous quality.” – George Bernard Shaw
Gandhi on Christians
“I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” – Mahatma Gandhi
Freeman Dyson on the Human Soul
“I do not claim that the architecture of the universe proves the existence of God. I claim only that the architecture of the universe is consistent with the hypothesis that mind plays an essential role in its functioning. . . . Some of us may be willing to entertain the hypothesis that there exists a universal mind or world soul which underlies the manifestations of mind that we observe. . . . The existence of a world soul is a question that belongs to religion and not to science.”- Freeman Dyson
Nietzsche on Christianity as Antiquity
“When we hear the ancient bells growling on a Sunday morning we ask ourselves: Is it really possible! This, for a jew, crucified two thousand years ago, who said he was God’s son? The proof of such a claim is lacking.” – Friedrich Nietzsche
Frederick Douglass on Organized Religion
“The church of this country is not only indifferent to the wrongs of the slave, it actually takes sides with the oppressors…. For my part, I would say, welcome infidelity! Welcome atheism!” – Frederick Douglass
Chuang Tzu on the Importance of Words
“The fish trap exists because of the fish. Once you’ve gotten the fish you can forget the trap. The rabbit snare exists because of the rabbit. Once you’ve gotten the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words exist because of meaning. Once you’ve gotten the meaning, you can forget the words. Where can I find a man who has forgotten words so I can talk with him?” -
Galileo Galilei on the Oxymoronical Nature of God
“I do not feel obligated to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reasons, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.”-Galileo Galilei
D. H. Lawrence on Fundamentalism
“It is a fine thing to establish one’s own religion in one’s heart, not to be dependent on tradition and second-hand ideals. Life will seem to you, later, not a lesser, but a greater thing.” – D. H. Lawrence
Einstein on The Bible
“The word god is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this.” – Albert Einstein
Richard Dawkins on Religion as a Barrier to Understanding
“I am against religion because it teaches us to be satisfied with not understanding the world. ” – Richard Dawkins
Leo Tolstoy on Faith
“Faith is the sense of life, that sense by virtue of which man does not destroy himself, but continues to live on. It is the force whereby we live.” – Leo Tolstoy
Einstein's Declaration of Agnosticism
“My position concerning God is that of an agnostic. I am convinced that a vivid consciousness of the primary importance of moral principles for the betterment and ennoblement of life does not need the idea of a law-giver, especially a law-giver who works on the basis of reward and punishment.” – Albert Einstein
Aristotle on Happiness
“Happiness is something final and complete in itself, as being the aim and end of all practical activities whatever …. Happiness then we define as the active exercise of the mind in conformity with perfect goodness or virtue.” – Aristotle
Michio Kaku on the Mathematical Beauty of the Universe
Realize that the motion of the heavens, with all the curved spaces and time warps and what-have-you, can be summarized in an equasion about an inch long. That is power. That is incredible. That is beautiful.
