“Question with boldness even the existence of God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear.”

-Thomas Jefferson

“This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness.”

-Dalai Lama

“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

“The Bible and the Church have been the greatest stumbling blocks in the way of women’s emancipation.”

-Elizabeth Cady Stanton

“I am against religion because it teaches us to be satisfied with not understanding the world.”

-Richard Dawkins

“It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.”

-Carl Sagan

“I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.”

-Robert A. Heinlein

“I am a strong advocate for free thought on all subjects, yet it appears to me (whether rightly or wrongly) that direct arguments against christianity & theism produce hardly any effect on the public;  & freedom of thought is best promoted by the gradual illumination of men’s minds, which follow[s] from the advance of science.”

-Charles Darwin

“I have sworn hostility against all forms of Tyranny over the minds of men.”

-Thomas Jefferson

“I think we ought always to entertain our opinions with some measure of doubt. I shouldn’t wish people dogmatically to believe any philosophy, not even mine.”

-Bertrand Russell

“The good thing about science is that it’s true whether or not you believe in it.”

-Neil deGrasse Tyson

“If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed.”

-Albert Einstein

“The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving after rational knowledge.”

-Albert Einstein

“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