Mark Twain
Writer, Humorist
"How easy it is to make people believe a lie, and [how] hard it is to undo that work again!"
Atheist quotes
Atheist
1.8K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
Omar Khayyam
Poet, Mathematician, Astronomer
"How much more of the mosque, of prayer and fasting? Better go drunk and begging round the taverns. Khayyam, drink wine, for soon this clay of yours Will make a cup, bowl, one day a jar. When once you hear the roses are in bloom, Then is the time, my love, to pour the wine; Houris and palaces and Heaven and Hell- These are but fairy-tales, forget them all."
Galileo Galilei
Astronomer, Physicist
"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with senses, reason, and intellect has intended us to forego their use."
Soren Kierkegaard
Philosopher, Theologian
"The greatest danger to Christianity is, I contend, not heresies, not heterodoxies, not atheists, not profane secularism - no, but the kind of orthodoxy which is cordial drivel, mediocrity served up sweet. There is nothing that so insidiously displaces the majestic as cordiality."
Karl Marx
Philosopher, Economist
"Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people."
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"Religion is based ... mainly upon fear ... fear of the mysterious, fear of defeat, fear of death. Fear is the parent of cruelty, and therefore it is no wonder if cruelty and religion have gone hand in hand. My own view on religion is that of Lucretius. I regard it as a disease born of fear and as a source of untold misery to the human race."
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"It is my view that the simplest explanation is there is no God. No one created the universe and no one directs our fate. This leads me to a profound realization. There is probably no heaven, and no afterlife either. We have this one life to appreciate the grand design of the universe, and for that, I am extremely grateful."
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"When a man is freed of religion, he has a better chance to live a normal and wholesome life."
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"I believe in God, only I spell it Nature."
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"Atheists express their rage against God although in their view He does not exist."
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"Religion is the impotence of the human mind to deal with occurrences it cannot understand."
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"It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring."
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"The reason people use a crucifix against vampires is because vampires are allergic to bullshit."
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"Most people can't bear to sit in church for an hour on Sundays. How are they supposed to live somewhere very similar to it for eternity?"
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"Blind belief in authority is the greatest enemy of truth."
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"Religions are like fireflies. They require darkness in order to shine."
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"The first requisite for the happiness of the people is the abolition of religion."
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"With respect to public acknowledgment of religious belief, it is entirely clear from our nation's historical practices that the Establishment Clause permits this disregard of polytheists and believers in unconcerned deities, just as it permits the disregard of devout atheists."
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"The atheist staring from his attic window is often nearer to God than the believer caught up in his own false image of God."
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"You believe in a book that has talking animals, wizards, witches, demons, sticks turning into snakes, burning bushes, food falling from the sky, people walking on water, and all sorts of magical, absurd and primitive stories, and you say that we are the ones that need help?"
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"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."
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"Sometimes when I'm faced with an atheist, I am tempted to invite him to the greatest gourmet dinner that one could ever serve, and when we have finished eating that magnificent dinner, to ask him if he believes there's a cook."
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"Gods always behave like the people who make them."
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"When men stop believing in God, it isn't that they then believe in nothing: they believe in everything."
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"Atheism is a disease of the soul before it becomes an error of understanding."
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