I'm an atheist, and that's it. I believe there's nothing we can know except that we should be kind to each other and do what we can for other people.

Truth in matters of religion is simply the opinion that has survived.

A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; 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.

“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?”

I am an atheist, out and out. It took me a long time to say it. I've been an atheist for years and years, but somehow I felt it was intellectually unrespectable to say that one is an atheist, because it assumed knowledge that one didn't have. Somehow it was better to say one was a humanist or agnostic. I don't have the evidence to prove that God doesn't exist, but I so strongly suspect that he doesn't that I don't want to waste my time.

The religious persecution of the ages has been done under what was claimed to be the command of God.

Millions long for immortality who don't know what to do on a rainy Sunday afternoon.

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

“For those who believe in God, most of the big questions are answered. But for those of us who can't readily accept the God formula, the big answers don't remain stone-written. We adjust to new conditions and discoveries. We are pliable. Love need not be a command nor faith a dictum. I am my own god. We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state, and our educational system. We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us.”

It is usually when men are at their most religious that they behave with the least sense and the greatest cruelty.