Atheism quotes
2.1K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside atheism — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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"The impossibility of conceiving that this grand and wondrous universe, with our conscious selves, arose through chance, seems to me the chief argument for the existence of God."
"Religion fosters servility and solipsism."
"The infliction of cruelty with a good conscience is a delight to moralists - that is why they invented hell."
"Death is the only thing we haven't succeeded in completely vulgarizing."
"Christianity, above all, consoles; but there are naturally happy souls who do not need consolation. Consequently Christianity begins by making such souls unhappy, for otherwise it would have no power over them."
"Once you attempt legislation upon religious grounds, you open the way for every kind of intolerance and religious persecution."
"All your Western theologies, the whole mythology of them, are based on the concept of God as a senile delinquent."
"It is an insult to our citizens to question whether they are rational beings or not, and blasphemy against religion to suppose it cannot stand the test of truth and reason."
"The rest of our enquiry is made easy because this God-Creator is openly called Father. Psycho-analysis concludes that he really is the father, clothed in the grandeur in which he once appeared to the small child."
"Human life is the result of a glorious evolutionary accident."
"In a discussion of this kind our interest should be centered not on the weight of the authority but on the weight of the argument. Indeed the authority of those who set out to teach is often an impediment to those who wish to learn. They cease to use their own judgment and regard as gospel whatever is put forward by their chosen teacher."
"To kill someone, even treacherously is more manly than to wound a friend by betraying his confidence."
"God is, as it were, the sewer into which all contradictions flow."
"Every judgment teeters on the brink of error. To claim absolute knowledge is to become monstrous. Knowledge is an unending adventure at the edge of uncertainty."
"Why should I live? Why should I do anything? Is there in life any purpose which the inevitable death that awaits me does not undo and destroy?"
"People generally quarrel because they cannot argue."
"A good deal of so-called atheism is itself, from my point of view, theologically significant. It is the working of God in history, and judgement upon the pious. An authentic prophet can be a radical critic of spurious piety, of sham spirituality."
"The only excuse for God is that he doesn't exist."
"Atheism is a cruel long term business, and I have gone through it to the end."
"Sooner or later, false thinking brings wrong conduct."
