Every once in a while a person speaks in such a way that I can’t help but say “Yes! that’s exactly it!” or “I love how this makes me feel.” or “Fabulous insight! I hadn’t thought about it that way.”

The following is but a small collection of the words that make me go “Hmmm…”


A man’s ethical behaviour should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear and punishment and hope of reward after death. — Albert Einstein, “Religion and Science,” 1956

An Atheist believes that a hospital should be built instead of a church. An atheist believes that deed must be done instead of prayer said. An atheist strives for involvement in life and not escape into death. He wants disease conquered, poverty vanished, war eliminated. — Madalyn Murray O’Hair

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

As a philosopher, if I were speaking to a purely philosophic audience I should say that I ought to describe myself as an Agnostic, because I do not think that there is a conclusive argument by which one can prove that there is not a God. On the other hand, if I am to convey the right impression to the ordinary man in the street I think that I ought to say that I am an Atheist, because, when I say that I cannot prove that there is not a God, I ought to add equally that I cannot prove that there are not the Homeric gods. — Bertrand Russell

Atheism is more than just the knowledge that gods do not exist, and that religion is either a mistake or a fraud. Atheism is an attitude, a frame of mind that looks at the world objectively, fearlessly, always trying to understand all things as a part of nature. — Carl Sagan

Be the change that you wish to see in the world. — Mahatma Gandhi

Because morality is a social necessity, the moment faith in god is banished, man’s gaze turns from god to man and he becomes socially conscious. Religious belief prevented the growth of a sense of realism. But atheism at once makes man realistic and alive to the needs of morality. — Goparaju Ramachandra Rao (aka Gora), “Atheism and Morality” in Atheism Questions and Answers

Consider it: every person you have ever met, every person will suffer the loss of his friends and family. All are going to lose everything they love in this world. Why would one want to be anything but kind to them in the meantime? — Sam Harris, The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason

Do not pity the dead, Harry. Pity the living, and, above all those who live without love. — J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. — Carl Sagan

Faith is a cop-out. It is intellectual bankruptcy. If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can’t be taken on its own merits. — Dan Barker

For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring. — Carl Sagan

I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours. — Stephen Roberts

I have examined all the known superstitions of the world, and I do not find in our particular superstition of Christianity one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology. — Thomas Jefferson

I have met thousands and thousands of pro-choice men and women. I have never met anyone who is pro-abortion. — Hillary Clinton

I mean, you could claim that anything’s real if the only basis for believing in it is that nobody’s proved it doesn’t exist! — J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is: I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a door mat or a prostitute. — Rebecca West, “Mr Chesterton in Hysterics: A Study in Prejudice,” The Clarion, 14 Nov 1913, reprinted in The Young Rebecca, 1982

If you think that it would be impossible to improve upon the Ten Commandments as a statement of morality, you really owe it to yourself to read some other scriptures. Once again, we need look no further than the Jains: Mahavira, the Jain patriarch, surpassed the morality of the Bible with a single sentence: “Do not injure, abuse, oppress, enslave, insult, torment, torture, or kill any creature or living being.” Imagine how different our world might be if the Bible contained this as its central precept. Christians have abused, oppressed, enslaved, insulted, tormented, tortured, and killed people in the name of God for centuries, on the basis of a theologically defensible reading of the Bible. — Sam Harris, Letter to a Christian Nation

If you want to know what a man’s like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals. — J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

In fact, “atheism” is a term that should not even exist. No one ever needs to identify himself as a “non-astrologer” or a “non-alchemist.” We do not have words for people who doubt that Elvis is still alive or that aliens have traversed the galaxy only to molest ranchers and their cattle. Atheism is nothing more than the noises reasonable people make in the presence of unjustified religious beliefs. — Sam Harris, Letter to a Christian Nation

In science it often happens that scientists say, ‘You know that’s a really good argument; my position is mistaken,’ and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn’t happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time someting like that happened in politics or religion. — Carl Sagan

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God? — Epicurus

Isn’t it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too? — Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

It is a curious thing, Harry, but perhaps those who are best suited to power are those who have never sought it. Those who, like you, have leadership thrust upon them, and take up the mantle because they must, and find to their own surprise that they wear it well. — J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case, you fail by default. — J.K. Rowling

It is our choices, Harry, that show us who we truly are, far more than our abilities. — J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

It takes much bravery to stand up to our enemies but we need as much bravery to stand up to our friends. — J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans. — John Lennon

Men never commit evil so fully and joyfully as when they do it for religious convictions — Blaise Pascal

No woman wants an abortion as she wants an ice cream cone or a Porsche. She wants an abortion as an animal caught in a trap wants to gnaw off its own leg. — Frederica Mathewes-Green

Nobody objects to a woman being a good writer or sculptor or geneticist if at the same time she manages to be a good wife, a good mother, good-looking, good-tempered, well-dressed, well-groomed, and unaggressive. — Marya Mannes

Now, the invention of the scientific method and science is, I’m sure we’ll all agree, the most powerful intellectual idea, the most powerful framework for thinking and investigating and understanding and challenging the world around us that there is, and that it rests on the premise that any idea is there to be attacked and if it withstands the attack then it lives to fight another day and if it doesn’t withstand the attack then down it goes. Religion doesn’t seem to work like that; it has certain ideas at the heart of it which we call sacred or holy or whatever. That’s an idea we’re so familiar with, whether we subscribe to it or not, that it’s kind of odd to think what it actually means, because really what it means is ‘Here is an idea or a notion that you’re not allowed to say anything bad about; you’re just not. Why not? – because you’re not! — Douglas Adams

One method of destroying a concept is by diluting its meaning. Observe that by ascribing rights to the unborn, i.e., the nonliving, the anti-abortionists obliterate the rights of the living. — Ayn Rand

Religion has convinced people that there’s an invisible man … living in the sky. Who watches everything you do every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a list of ten specific things he doesn’t want you to do. And if you do any of these things, he will send you to a special place, of burning and fire and smoke and torture and anguish for you to live forever, and suffer, and suffer, and burn, and scream, until the end of time. But he loves you. He loves you. He loves you and he needs money. — George Carlin

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. — George Bernard Shaw

The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike. — Delos B. McKown

The moral truth here is obvious: anyone who feels that the interests of a blastocyst just might supersede the interests of a child with a spinal cord injury has had his moral sense blinded by religious metaphysics. — Sam Harris

The philosophy of Atheism represents a concept of life without any metaphysical Beyond or Divine Regulator. It is the concept of an actual, real world with its liberating, expanding and beautifying possibilities, as against an unreal world, which, with its spirits, oracles, and mean contentment has kept humanity in helpless degradation. — Emma Goldman, Anarchism and Other Essays

The president of the United States has claimed, on more than one occasion, to be in dialogue with God. If he said that he was talking to God through his hairdryer, this would precipitate a national emergency. I fail to see how the addition of a hairdryer makes the claim more ridiculous or offensive. — Sam Harris, Letter to a Christian Nation

The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent. — Carl Sagan

To the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure. — J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

We are all atheists about most of the gods that societies have ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further. — Richard Dawkins

We establish no religion in this country, we command no worship, we mandate no belief. Nor will we ever. Church and state are, and must remain, separate. All are free to believe or not believe, all are free to practice a faith or not, and those who believe are free and should be free, to speak of and act on their belief. At the same time as our constitution prohibits state religion, establishment of it protects the free exercise of all religions. And walking this fine line requires government to be strictly neutral. — Ronald Reagan

We must question the story logic of having an all-knowing all-powerful God, who creates faulty Humans, and then blames them for his own mistakes. — Gene Roddenberry

We really need to get over this love affair with the fetus and start worrying about children. — Joycelyn Elders

We’ve all got both light and dark inside us. What matters is the part we choose to act on. That’s who we really are. — J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Your time is limited, don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma, which is living the result of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinion drowned your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition, they somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary. — Steve Jobs