Quotes about atheism

"An atheist may be simply one whose faith and love are concentrated on the impersonal aspects of God."

Weil, Simone on atheism   

"By night an atheist half believes in God."

Young, Edward on atheism   

"A man's ethical behavior 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 of punishment and hope of reward after death."

Einstein, Albert on atheism
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"Although the time of death is approaching me, I am not afraid of dying and going to Hell or (what would be considerably worse) going to the popularized version of Heaven. I expect death to be nothingness and, for removing me from all possible fears of death, I am thankful to atheism."

Asimov, Isaac on atheism
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"You do not need the bible to justify love, but no better tool has been invented to justify hate."

Weatherwax, Richard A. on atheism
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"Why should I allow that same God to tell me how to raise my kids, who had to drown His own?"

Russell, Bertrand on atheism
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"The fact that a believer is happier than a sceptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one. The happiness of credulity is a cheap and dangerous quality."

Shaw, George Bernard on atheism
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"Faith means not wanting to know what is true."

Nietzsche, Friedrich on atheism
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"I believe in God, only I spell it Nature."

Wright, Frank Lloyd on atheism   

"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."

Roddenberry, Gene on atheism
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"Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful."

Seneca on atheism
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"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."

Asimov, Isaac on atheism
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"Belief in the supernatural reflects a failure of the imagination."

Abbey, Edward on atheism
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"With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion."

Weinberg, Steven on atheism
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"I still say a church steeple with a lightning rod on top shows a lack of confidence."

McLeod, Doug on atheism
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"I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires."

Anthony, Susan B. on atheism
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"Two hands working can do more than a thousand clasped in prayer."

Anonymous on atheism
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"Atheism leaves a man to sense, to philosophy, to natural piety, to laws, to reputation; all of which may be guides to an outward moral virtue, even if religion vanished; but religious superstition dismounts all these and erects an absolute monarchy in the minds of men."

Bacon, Francis on atheism   

"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."

Dawkins, Richard on atheism
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"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."

Roberts, Steven H. on atheism
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"Calling Atheism a religion is like calling bald a hair color."

Hirschberg, Don on atheism
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"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 on atheism
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"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.)"

Adams, Douglas on atheism
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"I don’t believe in God because I don’t believe in Mother Goose"

Darrow, Clarence on atheism
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"I have never seen the slightest scientific proof of the religious ideas of heaven and hell, of future life for individuals, or of a personal God. So far as religion of the day is concerned, it is a damned fake… Religion is all bunk."

Edison, Thomas A. on atheism
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"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?"

Adams, Douglas on atheism
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"An atheist is as religious as a theist."

Joshi, Kedar on atheism   

"Under these conditions it is no wonder, that the movement of atheists, which declares religion to be just a deliberate illusion, invented by power-seeking priests, and which has for the pious belief in a higher Power nothing but words of mockery, eagerly makes use of progressive scientific knowledge and in a presumed unity with it, expands in an ever faster pace its disintegrating action on all nations of the earth and on all social levels. I do not need to explain in any more detail that after its victory not only all the most precious treasures of our culture would vanish, but – which is even worse – also any prospects at a better future."

Planck, Max on atheism