To be an atheist requires an infinitely greater measure of faith than to receive all the great truths which atheism would deny.
—Joseph Addison (1672–1719) English Essayist, Poet, Playwright, Politician
Faith, and belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel.
—Ambrose Bierce (1842–1913) American Short-story Writer, Journalist
No one is so thoroughly superstitious as the godless man. Life and death to him are haunted grounds, filled with goblin forms of vague and shadowy dread.
—Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811–96) American Abolitionist, Author
We shall say without hesitation that the atheist who is moved by love is moved by the Spirit of God; an atheist who lives by love is saved by his faith in the God whose existence (under that name) he denies.
—William Temple (1881–1944) British Clergyman, Theologian
An atheist is a person who has no visible means of support
—Unknown
People will then often say, “But surely it’s better to remain an Agnostic just in case?” This, to me, suggests such a level of silliness and muddle that I usually edge out of the conversation rather than get sucked into it. (If it turns out that I’ve been wrong all along, and there is in fact a god, and if it further turned out that this kind of legalistic, cross-your-fingers-behind-your-back, Clintonian hair-splitting impressed him, then I think I would choose not to worship him anyway.)
—Douglas Adams (1952–2001) English Novelist, Scriptwriter
There are few people so stubborn in their atheism who when danger is pressing in will not acknowledge the divine power.
—Plato (428 BCE–347 BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher, Mathematician, Educator
The beauty of religious mania is that it has the power to explain everything. Once God (or Satan) is accepted as the first cause of everything which happens in the mortal world, nothing is left to chance…logic can be happily tossed out the window.
—Stephen King (b.1947) American Novelist, Short-Story Writer, Screenwriter, Columnist, Film Director
I have a great love and respect for religion, great love and respect for atheism. What I hate is agnosticism, people who do not choose.
—Orson Welles (1915–85) American Film Director, Actor
There is no such thing as a man being too proud to fight; there is such a thing as a nation being so right that it does not need to convince others by force that it is right.
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) American Head of State
Atheism is a disease of the soul before it becomes an error of understanding.
—Plato (428 BCE–347 BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher, Mathematician, Educator
In agony or danger, no nature is atheist.—The mind that knows not what to fly to, flies to God.
—Hannah More
An atheist is a man who watches a Notre Dame—Southern Methodist University game and doesn’t care who wins.
—Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) American Head of State, Military Leader
The atheist is one of the most daring beings in creation—a contemner of God who explodes his laws by denying his existence.
—John Foster Dulles (1888–1959) American Republican Public Official, Lawyer
If therefore my work is negative, irreligious, atheistic, let it be remembered that atheism—at least in the sense of this work—is the secret of religion itself; that religion itself, not indeed on the surface, but fundamentally, not in intention or according to its own supposition, but in its heart, in its essence, believes in nothing else than the truth and divinity of human nature.
—Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach (1804–72) German Materialist Philosopher
Virtue in distress, and vice in triumph, make atheists of mankind.
—John Dryden (1631–1700) English Poet, Literary Critic, Playwright
If I were not an atheist, I would believe in a God who would choose to save people on the basis of the totality of their lives and not the pattern of their words. I think he would prefer an honest and righteous atheist to a TV preacher whose every word is God, God, God, and whose every deed is foul, foul, foul.
—Isaac Asimov (1920–92) Russian-born American Writer, Scientist
An atheist may be simply one whose faith and love are concentrated on the impersonal aspects of God.
—Simone Weil (1909–1943) French Philosopher, Political Activist
There are innumerable souls that would resent the charge of the fool’s atheism, yet daily deny God in very deed.
—John Foster Dulles (1888–1959) American Republican Public Official, Lawyer
An atheist is a man who has no invisible means of support.
—John Buchan, 1st Baron Tweedsmuir (1875–1940) Scottish Novelist, Politician, Diplomat
Atheists put on a false courage in the midst of their darkness and misapprehensions, like children who when they fear to go in the dark, will sing or whistle to keep up their courage.
—Alexander Pope (1688–1744) English Poet
Atheism, if it exists, is the result of ignorance and pride, of strong sense and feeble reason, of good eating and ill living.—It is the plague of society, the corrupter of morals, and the underminer of property.
—Jeremy Collier (1650–1726) Anglican Church Historian, Clergyman
Atheism is a non-prophet organization.
—George Carlin (1937–2008) American Stand-up Comedian
Selfishness is the only real atheism; unselfishness the only real religion.
—Israel Zangwill (1864–1926) English Playwright, Novelist, Zionist Activist
Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burned, tortured, fined, and imprisoned, yet we have not advanced one inch toward uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half of the world fools and the other half hypocrites.
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) American Head of State, Lawyer
He must pull out his own eyes, and see no creature, before he can say, he sees no God; He must be no man, and quench his reasonable soul, before he can say to himself, there is no God.
—John Donne (1572–1631) English Poet, Cleric
He was an embittered atheist (the sort of atheist who does not so much disbelieve in God as personally dislike Him).
—George Orwell (1903–50) English Novelist, Journalist
I cannot conceive of a God who rewards and punishes his creatures, or has a will of the type of which we are conscious ourselves.
—Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born Physicist
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 (b.1941) British Evolutionary Biologist, Atheist
We find the most terrible form of atheism, not in the militant and passionate struggle against the idea of God himself, but in the practical atheism of everyday living, in indifference and torpor. We often encounter these forms of atheism among those who are formally Christians.
—Nikolai Berdyaev (1874–1948) Russian Christian Philosopher, Religious Leader
The subtlety of nature is greater many times over than the subtlety of the senses and understanding.
—Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English Philosopher
An atheist is a man who looks through a telescope and tries to explain all that he can’t see.
—Unknown
What can be more foolish than to think that all this rare fabric of heaven and earth could come by chance, when all the skill of art is not able to make an oyster? To see rare effects, and no cause; a motion, without a mover; a circle, without a centre; a time, without an eternity; a second, without a first: these are things so against philosophy and natural reason, that he must be a beast in understanding who can believe in them. The thing formed, says that nothing formed it; and that which is made, is, while that which made it is not! This folly is infinite.
—Jeremy Taylor
Atheism is rather in the life than in the heart of man.
—Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English Philosopher
I’m not an athiest. How can you not believe in something that doesn’t exist? That’s way too convoluted for me.
—A. Whitney Brown (b.1952) American Comedian, TV Personality
I hope I never get so old I get religious.
—Ingmar Bergman (1918–2007) Swedish Film and Stage Director
There is no God, Nature sufficeth unto herself; in no wise hath she need of an author.
—Marquis de Sade (1740–1814) French Political leader, Revolutionary, Novelist, Poet, Critic
I am a daylight atheist.
—Brendan Behan (1923–64) Irish Poet, Novelist, Playwright
The atheist who is moved by love is moved by the Spirit of God; an atheist who lives by love is saved by his faith in the God whose existence
—Unknown
Atheism leaves a man to sense, to philosophy, to natural piety, to laws, to reputation, all which may be guides to an outward moral virtue, though religion were not; but superstition dismounts all these, and erects an absolute monarchy in the minds of men…the master of superstition is the people; and arguments are fitted to practice, in a reverse order
—Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English Philosopher
To believe in God is impossible – to not believe in Him is absurd
—Voltaire (1694–1778) French Philosopher, Author
I’m completely in favor of the separation of Church and State. My idea is that these two institutions screw us up enough on their own, so both of them together is certain death.
—George Carlin (1937–2008) American Stand-up Comedian
I don’t know if God exists, but it would be better for His reputation if He didn’t.
—Jules Renard (1864–1910) French Writer, Diarist
How to trap an atheist: Serve him a fine meal, then ask him if he believes there is a cook.
—Unknown
Atheism is the death of hope, the suicide of the soul.
—Hugh Miller (1802–56) Scottish Geologist, Writer
I’m an atheist and I thank God for it.
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish Playwright
Why should I allow that same God to tell me how to raise my kids, who had to drown His own?
—Bertrand A. Russell (1872–1970) British Philosopher, Mathematician, Social Critic
I cannot believe in a God who wants to be praised all the time.
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German Philosopher, Scholar, Writer
Forth from his dark and lonely hiding-place, (Portentous sight!) the owlet Atheism, sailing on obscene wings athwart the noon, drops his blue-fringed lids, and holds them close, and hooting at the glorious sun in Heaven, cries out, “Where is it?”
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) English Poet, Literary Critic, Philosopher
And as for the unbelievers, their works are as a mirage in a spacious plain which the man athirst supposes to be water, till when he comes to it, he finds it is nothing; there indeed he finds God, and He pays him his account in full; (and God is swift at the reckoning).
—The Holy Quran Sacred Scripture of Islam