Quotes about atheism

"Small amounts of philosophy lead to atheism, but larger amounts bring us back to God."

Bacon, Francis on atheism
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"Atheism is rather in the lip than in the heart of man."

Bacon, Francis on atheism   

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"It is true, that a little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion."

Bacon, Francis on atheism   

"I had rather believe all the Fables in the Legend, and the Talmud, and the Alcoran, than that this universal frame is without a Mind."

Bacon, Francis on atheism   

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"I am a daylight atheist."

Behan, Brendan F. on atheism   

"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."

Berdyaev, Nicolai A. on atheism   

"Irreligion. The principal one of the great faiths of the world."

Bierce, Ambrose on atheism   

"Nobody talks so constantly about God as those who insist that there is no God."

Broun, Heywood on atheism
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"Those thinkers who cannot believe in any gods often assert that the love of humanity would be in itself sufficient for them; and so, perhaps, it would, if they had it."

Chesterton, Gilbert K. on atheism   

"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?"

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor on atheism   

"When I told the people of Northern Ireland that I was an atheist, a woman in the audience stood up and said, yes, but is it the God of the Catholics or the God of the Protestants in whom you don't believe?"

Crisp, Quentin on atheism
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"There are no atheists in foxholes."

Cummings, William T. on atheism   

"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."

Donne, John on atheism   

"If there is no God, everything is permitted."

Dostoevsky, Fyodor on atheism
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"Atheism is easy in fair weather."

Dunn, Ronald on atheism   

"An atheist is a man who watches a Notre Dame -- Southern Methodist University game and doesn't care who wins."

Eisenhower, Dwight D. on atheism   

"Here lies an Atheist: All Dressed Up and No Place to Go."

Epitaph on atheism
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"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."

Feuerbach, Ludwig on atheism   

"I can't believe in the God of my Fathers. If there is one Mind which understands all things, it will comprehend me in my unbelief. I don't know whose hand hung Hesperus in the sky, and fixed the Dog Star, and scattered the shining dust of Heaven, and fired the sun, and froze the darkness between the lonely worlds that spin in space."

Kersh, Gerald on atheism   

"If you don't believe in God, all you have to believe in is decency. Decency is very good. Better decent than indecent. But I don't think it's enough."

Macmillan, Harold on atheism   

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

Munro, Hector Hugh on atheism   

"He was an embittered atheist (the sort of atheist who does not so much disbelieve in God as personally dislike Him)."

Orwell, George on atheism
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"Here we are, we're alone in the universe, there's no God, it just seems that it all began by something as simple as sunlight striking on a piece of rock. And here we are. We've only got ourselves. Somehow, we've just got to make a go of it. We've only ourselves."

Osborne, John on atheism   

"What you don't understand is that it is possible to be an atheist, it is possible not to know if God exists or why He should, and yet to believe that man does not live in a state of nature but in history, and that history as we know it now began with Christ, it was founded by Him on the Gospels."

Pasternak, Boris on atheism   

"If you can't believe in God, chances are your God is too small."

Phillips, James on atheism   

"There are few people so stubborn in their atheism who when danger is pressing in will not acknowledge the divine power."

Plato on atheism   

"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)."

Qur'an on atheism   

"The divine is perhaps that quality in man which permits him to endure the lack of God."

Rostand, Jean on atheism   

"There is no God, Nature sufficeth unto herself; in no wise hath she need of an author."

Sade, Marquis De on atheism
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"Now we have no God. We have had two: the old God that our fathers handed down to us, that we hated, and never liked; the new one that we made for ourselves, that we loved; but now he has flitted away from us, and we see what he was made of -- the shadow of our highest ideal, crowned and throned. Now we have no God."

Schreiner, Olive on atheism   

"I'm an atheist and I thank God for it."

Shaw, George Bernard on atheism
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"During the crusades all were religious mad, and now all are mad for want of it."

Stedman, Captain J. G. on atheism   

"First, whenever a man talks loudly against religion, always suspect that it is not his reason, but his passions, which have got the better of his creed. A bad life and a good belief are disagreeable and troublesome neighbors, and where they separate, depend upon it, 'Tis for no other cause but quietness sake."

Sterne, Laurence on atheism   

"When ever a person talks loudly against religion, always suspect that it is not their reason, but their passions, which have got the better of their beliefs. A bad life and a good belief are disagreeable and troublesome neighbors; and when they separate, depend on it that it is for the sake of peace and quiet."

Sterne, Laurence on atheism   

"An atheist is a man who believes himself an accident."

Thompson, Francis on atheism   

"How to trap an atheist: Serve him a fine meal, then ask him if he believes there is a cook."

Unknown, Source on atheism   

"An atheist is a person who has no invisible means of support"

Huxley, Aldous on atheism
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"An atheist is a man who looks through a telescope and tries to explain all that he can't see."

Unknown, Source on atheism   

"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."

Temple, Sir William on atheism   

"Among the repulsions of atheism for me has been its drastic uninterestingness as an intellectual position. Where was the ingenuity, the ambiguity, the humanity (in the Harvard sense) of saying that the universe just happened to happen and that when we're dead we're dead?"

Updike, John on atheism