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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"We are enabled to apprehend at all what is sublime and noble only by the perpetual instilling and drenching of the reality that surrounds us. We can never have enough of nature."
"Wherever a man goes, men will pursue him and paw him with their dirty institutions, and, if they can, constrain him to belong to their desperate odd-fellow society."
"Faith means the will to avoid knowing what is true."
"If there is no God, everything is permitted."
"It is easier for a Russian to become an Atheist, than for any other nationality in the world. And not only does a Russian 'become an Atheist,' but he actually BELIEVES IN Atheism, just as though he had found a new faith, not perceiving that he has pinned his faith to a negation. Such is our anguish of thirst!"
"When one's character begins to fall under suspicion and disfavor, how swift, then, is the work of disintegration and destruction."
"We may not pay Satan reverence, for that would be indiscreet, but we can at least respect his talents."
"When one reads Bibles, one is less surprised at what the Deity knows than at what He doesn't know."
"The greatest act of faith takes place when a man finally decides that he is not God."
"As the magistrate has no power to impose by his laws the use of any rites and ceremonies in any church, so neither has he any power to forbid the use of such rites and ceremonies as are already received, approved, and practised by any church; because if he did so, he would destroy the church itself; the end of whose institution is only to worship God with freedom, after its own manner."
"Those are not at all to be tolerated who deny the being of God. Promises, covenants, and oaths, which are the bonds of human society, can have no hold upon an atheist. The taking away of God, though but even in thought, dissolves all."
"Faith is the assent to any proposition not made out by the deduction of reason but upon the credit of the proposer."
"It is historically true that a large proportion of infidels in all ages have been persons of distinguished integrity and honor."
"My father taught me that the question Who made me? cannot be answered, since it immediately suggests the further question, Who made God?"
"There is always need of persons not only to discover new truths, and point out when what were once truths are true no longer, but also to commence new practices, and set the example of more enlightened conduct, and better taste and sense in human life."
"The principle itself of dogmatic religion, dogmatic morality, dogmatic philosophy, is what requires to be booted out; not any particular manifestation of that principle."
"When philosophic reason is clear and certain by intuition or necessary induction, no subsequent revelation supported by prophecies or miracles can supersede it."
"When reputable scientists correct flaws in an experiment that produced fantastic results, then fail to get those results when they repeat the test with flaws corrected, they withdraw their original claims. They do not defend them by arguing irrelevantly that the failed replication was successful in some other way, or by making intemperate attacks on whomever dares to criticize their competence."
"My reason is not framed to bend or stoop: my knees are."
"I am surrounded here by parsons and methodists, but as you will see, not infested with the mania."
