--- title: "Quotes on Religion & Reason — The Best Atheist Quotes" description: "The most memorable quotes about God, faith, morality, and freethought from philosophers, scientists, writers, and comedians across the centuries." canonical: https://opendoubt.com/quotes source: html --- # Quotes on Religion & Reason — The Best Atheist Quotes > The most memorable quotes about God, faith, morality, and freethought from philosophers, scientists, writers, and comedians across the centuries. Words worth remembering # Quotes on _Religion & Reason_ The most memorable lines about God, faith, morality, and freethought — from philosophers, scientists, writers, and comedians across the centuries. > “That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.” [Christopher Hitchens](/people/christopher-hitchens)God Is Not Great > “Human decency is not derived from religion. It precedes it.” [Christopher Hitchens](/people/christopher-hitchens)God Is Not Great > “Religion is man-made. Even the men who made it cannot agree on what their prophets or redeemers or gurus actually said or did.” [Christopher Hitchens](/people/christopher-hitchens)God Is Not Great > “The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks.” [Christopher Hitchens](/people/christopher-hitchens)Letters to a Young Contrarian > “Exceptional claims demand exceptional evidence.” [Christopher Hitchens](/people/christopher-hitchens)God Is Not Great > “Is it too modern to notice that there is nothing in the Ten Commandments about the protection of children against cruelty?” [Christopher Hitchens](/people/christopher-hitchens)God Is Not Great > “We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.” [Richard Dawkins](/people/richard-dawkins)The God Delusion > “Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence.” [Richard Dawkins](/people/richard-dawkins) > “The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction.” [Richard Dawkins](/people/richard-dawkins)The God Delusion > “There is something infantile in the presumption that somebody else has a responsibility to give your life meaning.” [Richard Dawkins](/people/richard-dawkins)The God Delusion > “I am against religion because it teaches us to be satisfied with not understanding the world.” [Richard Dawkins](/people/richard-dawkins) > “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.” [Sam Harris](/people/sam-harris)Letter to a Christian Nation > “Either God can do nothing to stop catastrophes like this, or he doesn't care to, or he doesn't exist. God is either impotent, evil, or imaginary.” [Sam Harris](/people/sam-harris) > “The only angels we need invoke are those of our better nature: reason, honesty, and love.” [Sam Harris](/people/sam-harris)The End of Faith > “Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings.” [Sam Harris](/people/sam-harris)The End of Faith > “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” [Carl Sagan](/people/carl-sagan)Cosmos > “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](/people/carl-sagan)The Demon-Haunted World > “Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.” [Carl Sagan](/people/carl-sagan) > “Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality.” [Carl Sagan](/people/carl-sagan)The Demon-Haunted World > “The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.” [Bertrand Russell](/people/bertrand-russell) > “I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong.” [Bertrand Russell](/people/bertrand-russell) > “Religion is based, I think, primarily and mainly upon fear.” [Bertrand Russell](/people/bertrand-russell)Why I Am Not a Christian > “So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence.” [Bertrand Russell](/people/bertrand-russell) > “There is no polite way to suggest to someone that they have devoted their life to a folly.” [Daniel Dennett](/people/daniel-dennett) > “The kindly God who lovingly fashioned each and every one of us and sprinkled the sky with shining stars for our delight — that God is, like Santa Claus, a myth of childhood.” [Daniel Dennett](/people/daniel-dennett)Breaking the Spell > “The easy confidence with which I know another man's religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also.” Mark Twain > “It ain't the parts of the Bible that I can't understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand.” Mark Twain > “Faith is believing what you know ain't so.” Mark TwainFollowing the Equator > “God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.” Friedrich NietzscheThe Gay Science > “In heaven, all the interesting people are missing.” Friedrich Nietzsche > “There is not enough love and goodness in the world to permit giving any of it away to imaginary beings.” Friedrich NietzscheHuman, All Too Human > “The hands that help are better far than lips that pray.” Robert G. Ingersoll > “Reason, observation, and experience — the holy trinity of science.” Robert G. Ingersoll > “The notion that faith in Christ is to be rewarded by an eternity of bliss, while a dependence upon reason, observation, and experience merits everlasting pain, is too absurd for refutation.” Robert G. Ingersoll > “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 > “Death does not concern us, because as long as we exist, death is not here. And when it does come, we no longer exist.” Epicurus > “Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.” Voltaire > “Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.” Voltaire > “Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful.” Seneca > “We suffer more often in imagination than in reality.” SenecaLetters to Lucilius > “Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by.” Marcus AureliusMeditations > “The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.” Marcus AureliusMeditations > “My own mind is my own church.” Thomas PaineThe Age of Reason > “All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind.” Thomas PaineThe Age of Reason > “The most formidable weapon against errors of every kind is reason.” Thomas PaineThe Age of Reason > “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 > “I'd take the awe of understanding over the awe of ignorance any day.” Douglas AdamsThe Salmon of Doubt > “Religion has actually convinced people that there's an invisible man living in the sky who watches everything you do, every minute of every day.” George Carlin > “I'm completely in favor of the separation of Church and State. These two institutions screw us up enough on their own, so both of them together is certain death.” George Carlin > “It's not that I don't believe in God. I just have no need for that hypothesis.” [Stephen Fry](/people/stephen-fry) > “With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil — that takes religion.” Steven Weinberg > “The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless.” Steven WeinbergThe First Three Minutes > “The universe is the way it is, whether we like it or not. The existence or nonexistence of a creator is independent of our desires.” [Lawrence Krauss](/people/lawrence-krauss)A Universe from Nothing > “I have something to say to the religionist who feels atheists never combatted combated injustice:Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani.” [Dan Barker](/people/dan-barker) > “Truth does not demand belief. Scientists do not join hands every Sunday, singing 'yes, gravity is real! I will have faith!'” [Dan Barker](/people/dan-barker) > “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 > “When one person suffers from a delusion, it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion, it is called Religion.” Robert M. PirsigZen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance > “Two hands working can do more than a thousand clasped in prayer.” Madalyn Murray O'Hair > “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.” George Bernard Shaw > “If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed.” Albert Einstein > “Philosophy is questions that may never be answered. Religion is answers that may never be questioned.” Anonymous > “Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Give him a religion, and he will starve to death while praying for a fish.” Timothy Jones > “A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary.” Albert Einstein > “The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike.” Delos B. McKown > “Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.” Blaise PascalPensees > “I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.” Mark Twain > “Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived.” Isaac Asimov > “The God hypothesis is no longer of any pragmatic value for the interpretation or comprehension of nature, and indeed often stands in the way of better and truer interpretation.” Julian Huxley > “You don't need religion to have morals. If you can't determine right from wrong, then you lack empathy, not religion.” Kane Bailey > “A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything.” Friedrich Nietzsche > “To surrender to ignorance and call it God has always been premature, and it remains premature today.” Isaac Asimov Stay informed Stay in the conversation A monthly digest — new arguments, debate highlights, and what’s changing in the world of secular thought. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. Quick quiz Not sure where you land? Take a one-minute quiz and get a read on your faith footprint — where you've been, where you are, and where to go next. [Find my path →](/quiz) Continue exploring [ Famous atheists The thinkers behind the quotes — philosophers, scientists, writers, and activists throughout history. ](/famous-atheists)[ Criticisms of religion The strongest secular critiques of religion, from the problem of evil to institutional harm. ](/criticisms)[ All profiles In-depth profiles of the thinkers who shaped the conversation about religion. ](/people)[ Watch the best debates See these ideas argued live — the greatest debates between believers and skeptics. ](/debates) --- _Canonical HTML version: https://opendoubt.com/quotes_