Best 2951 quotes in «atheism quotes» category

Naturally, since [the Sumerians] didn't know what caused the flood anymore than we do, they blamed the gods. (That's the advantage of religion. You're never short an explanation for anything.)

Nature is not personal. She is the compound of all these processes which move through the universe to effect the results we know as Life and of all the ordinances which govern that universe and that make Life continuous. She is no more the Hebrew's Jehovah than she is the Physicist's Force; she is as much Providence as she is Electricity; she is not the Great Pattern any more than she is the Blind Chance.

Nature ordains that a man should wish the good of every man, whoever he may be, for this very reason that he is a man.

Never king dropped out of the clouds.

Never try to discourage thinking, for you are sure to succeed.

New knowledge has led to the recognition in the theory of evolution of more than a hypothesis. It is indeed remarkable that this theory has been progressively accepted by researchers, following a series of discoveries in various fields of knowledge. The convergence, neither sought nor fabricated, of the results of work that was conducted independently is in itself a significant argument in favor of this theory.

No citizen enjoys genuine freedom of religious conviction until the state is indifferent to every form of religious outlook from Atheism to Zoroastrianism.

... no compelling data to support its anachronistic social Darwinism.

No Discourse whatsoever, can End in absolute Knowledge of Fact.

No doubt the testimony of natural reason, on whatever exercised, must, of necessity, stop short of those truths which it is the object of revelation to make known; still it places the existence and personal attributes of the Deity on such grounds as to render doubts absurd and atheism ridiculous.

No egoism is so insufferable as that of the Christian with regard to his soul.

No fear... we are never sure of anything... fear never prevents [bad things] from happening.

No man is above the law.

No man dies for what he knows to be true. Men die for what they want to be true, for what some terror in their hearts tells them is not true.

No man must encroach upon my province, nor I upon his. He may advise me, moderately and without pertinaciousness, but he must not expect to dictate to me. He may censure me freely and without reserve; but he should remember that I am to act by my deliberation and not his. I ought to exercise my talents for the benefit of others; but that exercise must be the fruit of my own conviction; no man must attempt to press me into the service.

Non-proliferation will only work if all states are willing to cooperate, and that will only happen if all feel they are being treated fairly.

Non-cooperation with evil is as much a duty as is cooperation with good.

Nonbelievers are protected by the religion clauses of the Constitution not because secular humanism is a religion, which it is not, but because when the government acts on the basis of religion it discriminates against those who do not "believe" in the governmentally favored manner.

No one can be an unbeliever nowadays. The Christian apologists have left one nothing to disbelieve.

No one ever dies an atheist.

No pleasure is comparable to the standing upon the vantage-ground of truth.

No one of Lincoln's old acquaintances in this city ever heard of his conversion to Christianity by Dr. Smith or anyone else. It was never suggested nor thought of here until after his death.... I never saw him read a second of time in Dr. Smith's book on Infidelity. He threw at down upon our table - spit upon it as it were - and never opened it to my knowledge.

No other single innovation had so much impact on history.

No religion is suddenly rejected by any people; it is rather gradually outgrown. None sees a religion die; dead religions are like dead languages and obsolete customs: the decay is long and - like the glacier march - is perceptible only to the careful watcher by comparisons extending over long periods.

No power of government ought to be employed in the endeavor to establish any system or article of belief on the subject of religion.

No sign of purpose can be detected in any part of the vast universe disclosed by our most powerful telescopes.

Not a single one of your ancestors died young. They all copulated at least once.

Not far from the invention of fire we must rank the invention of doubt.

Nothing, absolutely nothing, has a more direct bearing on the moral choices made by individuals or the purposes pursued by society than belief or disbelief in God.

Nothing could add to the horror of hell, except the presence of its creator, God.

Nothing but free argument, raillery and even ridicule will preserve the purity of religion.

Nothing enlarges the gulf of atheism more than the wide passage that lies between the faith and lives of men pretending to teach Christianity.

Nothing could be more idiotic and absurd than the doctrine of the trinity.

Nothing is bigger than life. There's nothing noble in death. What's noble about never seeing the sunshine again? What's noble about having your legs and arms blown off? What's noble about being an idiot? What's noble about being blind and deaf and dumb? What's noble about being dead?

Nothing is destroyed until it is replaced.

Nothing is more tedious than the dreaming platitude.

Nothing is so firmly believed as what we least know.

Nothing is greater than to break the chains from the bodies of men, nothing nobler than to destroy the phantom of the soul.

Nothing is more difficult and nothing requires more character than to find oneself in open opposition to ones time (and those one loves) and to say loudly: No!

Nothing is more logical than persecution. Religious tolerance is a kind of infidelity.

Nothing's beautiful from every point of view.

Nothing the desert produces expresses it better than the unhappy growth of the tree yuccas

No true believer could be intolerant or a persecutor. If I were a magistrate and the law carried the death penalty against atheists, I would begin by sending to the stake whoever denounced another.

Now it seems that everything in the world stems from sources other than God, since the products of nature have their source in nature; deliberate effects can be traced back to human reason or will as their source. There is no need then to assume that God exists.

Nowhere in the Gospels is intelligence praised as a virtue.

Now, if anything at all can be known to be wrong, it seems to me to be unshakably certain that it would be wrong to make any sentient being suffer eternally for any offence whatever.

Obviously, if theism is a belief in a God and atheism is a lack of a belief in a God, no third position or middle ground is possible. A person can either believe or not believe in a God. Therefore, our previous definition of atheism has made an impossibility out of the common usage of agnosticism to mean "neither affirming nor denying a belief in God.

Obey; this may be right; but beware of reverence.... Government is nothing but regulated force; force is its appropriate claim upon your attention. It is the business of individuals to persuade; the tendency of concentrated strength, is only to give consistency and permanence to an influence more compendious than persuasion.

Now the answer ... is plain, but it is so unpalatable that most men will not face it. There is no reason for life and life has no meaning.

Obsolete misleading theologies bear the same relation to the essence of true religion that scarlet fever, mumps, and measles do to education.