Here is a complete list of the
quotes randomly displayed across this site.
For it is the natural tendency of the ignorant to believe what is not true. In order to overcome that tendency it is not sufficient to exhibit the true; it is also necessary to expose and denounce the false.
H. L. Mencken
We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the same sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart.
H. L. Mencken
The curse of man, and cause of nearly all of his woes, is his stupendous capacity for believing the incredible.
H. L. Mencken
Moral certainty is always a sign of cultural inferiority. The more uncivilized the man, the surer he is that he knows precisely what is right and what is wrong. All human progress, even in morals, has been the work of men who have doubted the current moral values, not of men who have whooped them up and tried to enforce them. The truly civilized man is always skeptical and tolerant.
H. L. Mencken
The way to deal with superstition is not to be polite to it, but to tackle it with all arms, and so rout it, cripple it, and make it forever infamous and ridiculous. Is it, perchance, cherished by persons who should know better? Then their folly should be brought out into the light of day, and exhibited there in all its hideousness until they flee from it, hiding their heads in shame.
H. L. Mencken
The most curious social convention of the great age in which we live is the one to the effect that religious opinions should be respected.
H. L. Mencken
For centuries, theologians have been explaining the unknowable in terms of the-not-worth-knowing
H. L. Mencken
The Old Testament is responsible for more atheism, agnosticism, disbelief - call it what you will - than any book ever written: It has emptied more churches than all the counterattractions of cinema, motor bicycle, and golf course.
A. A. Milne
Science has proof without any certainty. Creationists have certainty without any proof
Ashley Montague
The compass that today guides this timeless endeavor is scientific inquiry. It is science that gazes outward, providing the grand questions that challenge us to journey farther and farther from home. But it is also science that peers inward, exploring previously inaccessible areas of the Earth, and asking the practical questions that help us to make Earth safer, protect our citizens, and expand our economy.
NASA Roadmap "Exploring our Planet for the Benefit of Society", 2005
First they came for the Communists but I was not a Communist so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Socialists and the Trade Unionists but I was not one of them, so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Jews but I was not Jewish so I did not speak out. And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me.
Martin Niemoeller
Faith, indeed, has up to the present not been able to move real mountains ... But it can put mountains where there are none
Friedrich Nietzsche
Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies
Friedrich Nietzsche
In Christianity neither morality nor religion come into contact with reality at any point
Friedrich Nietzsche
Digressions, objections, delight in mockery, carefree mistrust are signs of health; everything unconditional belongs in pathology
Friedrich Nietzsche
The Christian resolution to find the world ugly and bad has made the world ugly and bad
Friedrich Nietzsche
The two great European narcotics, alcohol and Christianity.
Friedrich Nietzsche
In heaven all the interesting people are missing
Friedrich Nietzsche
In times of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.
George Orwell
As to the book called the Bible, it is blasphemy to call it the word of God. It is a book of lies and contradictions, and a history of bad times and bad men. There are but a few good characters in the whole book.
Thomas Paine
When men yield up the privilege of thinking, the last shadow of liberty quits the horizon.
Thomas Paine
For if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle? So likewise ye, except ye utter by the tongue words easy to be understood, how shall it be known what is spoken?
St Paul - 1 Corinthians 14:8,9
I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious
St Paul - Acts 17:22
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
St Paul - Hebrews 11:1
Perfect as the wing of a bird may be, it will never enable the bird to fly if unsupported by the air. Facts are the air of science. Without them a man of science can never rise.
Ivan Pavlov
Write on my gravestone: 'Infidel, Traitor.' - infidel to every church that compromises with wrong; traitor to every government that oppresses the people.
Wendell Phillips
Science is facts; just as houses are made of stones, so is science made of facts; but a pile of stones is not a house and a collection of facts is not necessarily science
Henri Poincare
We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant.
Sir Karl Popper
I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do.
Stephen Roberts
Broad-minded is just another way of saying a fellow's too lazy to form an opinion.
Will Rogers
One of the most painful circumstances of recent advances in science is that each one makes us know less than we thought we did
Bertrand Russell
The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.
Bertrand Russell
It is undesirable to believe a proposition when there is no ground whatsoever for supposing it is true.
Bertrand Russell
Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones.
Bertrand Russell
The good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge.
Bertrand Russell
Not to be absolutely certain is, I think, one of the essential things in rationality.
Bertrand Russell
A habit of basing convictions upon evidence, and giving to them only that degree of credibility which the evidence warrants, would, if it became general, cure the world from most of the ills from which it is suffering.
Bertrand Russell
Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind.
Bertrand Russell
So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence.
Bertrand Russell
A scientist who is also a human being cannot rest while knowledge which might reduce suffering rests on the shelf
Albert Sabin
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
I maintain there is much more wonder in science than in pseudoscience. And in addition, to whatever measure this term has any meaning, science has the additional virtue, and it is not an inconsiderable one, of being true
Carl Sagan
In the final tolling it often turns out that the facts are more comforting than the fantasy
Carl Sagan
Religions are the great fairy tales of conscience
George Santayana
My atheism, like that of Spinoza, is true piety towards the universe and denies only gods fashioned by men in their own image, to be servants of their human interests.
George Santayana
Education is when you read the fine print. Experience is what you get if you don't
Pete Seeger
Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful.
Seneca
The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one.
George Bernard Shaw
No man ever believes that the Bible means what IT says; he is always convinced that it says what HE means
George Bernard Shaw
It is vain philosophy that supposes more causes than are exactly adequate to explain the phenomena of things
Percy Bysshe Shelley
