Agnostic Quotes - Page 2

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

  Carl Sagan

  Death, Witty, Atheist

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark”, p.32, Ballantine Books

  166 Copy quote

  Show source

• An agnostic is a cowardly atheist.

  Studs Terkel

  Atheist, Belief, Cowardly

  Religion & Ethics Newsweekly Interview, www.pbs.org. December 19, 2003.

  14 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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.

  Isaac Asimov

  Atheist, Science, Years

  Free Inquiry Journal, Spring 1982.

  34 Copy quote

  Show source

• The more I study religions the more I am convinced that man never worshipped anything but himself.

  Richard Francis Burton

  Death, Religious, Atheist

  "The Book of The Thousand Nights And A Night". Book by John Payne, Terminal Essay: Social Conditions, fn. 13., 1885.

  58 Copy quote

  Show source

• Gods dont kill people. People with Gods kill people.

  David Viaene

  Religious, Atheist, People

  98 Copy quote

• Faith: not wanting to know what is true.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Faith, Religious, Atheist

  Friedrich Nietzsche (1977). “The Portable Nietzsche”, p.383, Penguin

  96 Copy quote

  Show source

• Where knowledge ends, religion begins.

  Benjamin Disraeli

  Atheist, Religion, Atheism

  Attributed to Benjamin Disraeli in John Gordon Stewart Drysdale and John James Drysdale "The Protoplasmic Theory of Life" (p. 279), 1874.

  86 Copy quote

  Show source

• The world holds two classes of men; intelligent men without religion, and religious men without intelligence.

  Al-Maʿarri

  Religious, Atheist, Intelligent

  "A Short History of Freethought, Ancient and Modern, Volume I". Book by John Mackinnon Robertson, 1906.

  48 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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.

  Isaac Asimov

  Spiritual, Atheist, Fear

  Isaac Asimov (2009). “I, Asimov: A Memoir”, p.481, Bantam

  69 Copy quote

  Show source

• I know of no wars started by anyone to impose lack of religion on someone else. We have lethal Sunni v Shia, Catholic against Protestant, but no agnostic suicide bombers attack crowded atheist pubs.

  Simon Hoggart

  Suicide, Atheist, War

  "Simon Hoggart's week: Ever heard of an agnostic suicide bomber?" by Simon Hoggart, www.theguardian.com. February 24, 2012.

  48 Copy quote

  Show source

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

  Susan B. Anthony

  Inspirational, God, Death

  Lynn Sherr, Susan B. Anthony (1995). “Failure Is Impossible: Susan B. Anthony in Her Own Words”, Crown

  153 Copy quote

  Show source

• Confucius was a humanist and an agnostic.

  Hu Shih

  Humanist

  12 Copy quote

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

  Richard Dawkins

  Death, Atheist, Learning

  "The Two Types of Faith" by Greg Cootsona, www.huffingtonpost.com. February 17, 2016.

  81 Copy quote

  Show source

• A man is accepted into a church for what he believes and he is turned out for what he knows.

  Mark Twain

  Religious, Atheist, Believe

  Mark Twain (2015). “Bite-Size Twain: Wit and Wisdom from the Literary Legend”, p.55, St. Martin's Press

  31 Copy quote

  Show source

• I believe in God, only I spell it Nature.

  Frank Lloyd Wright

  God, Atheist, Nature

  Quote magazine, August 14, 1966.

  216 Copy quote

  Show source

• I'm an agnostic. Sometimes I muse deeply on the forces that are for me invisible. When I am almost close to the idea of God, I feel immediately estranged by the horrors of this world, which he seems to tolerate.

  Stanislaw Ulam

  Ideas, World, Sometimes

  "The Melting - Pot Revisited: Twenty Well - Known Americans of Polish Background". Book by Olgierd Budrewicz, 1977.

  19 Copy quote

  Show source

• If there is a God, atheism must seem to Him as less of an insult than religion.

  Edmond de Goncourt

  Atheist, If There Is A God, Religion

  72 Copy quote

• One thing I have no worry about is whether God exists. But it has occurred to me that God has Alzheimer's and has forgotten we exist.

  Jane Wagner

  Spiritual, Atheist, Science

  16 Copy quote

• I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation and is but a reflection of human frailty.

  Albert Einstein

  Love, Inspirational, Life

  Albert Einstein (2010). “The Ultimate Quotable Einstein”, p.330, Princeton University Press

  32 Copy quote

  Show source

• Another important historical factor is the fact that this already very simple religion was further simplified and purified by the early philosophers of ancient China. Our first great philosopher was a founder of naturalism; and our second great philosopher was an agnostic.

  Hu Shih

  Simple, Historical, Religion

  52 Copy quote

• The idea that God is an oversized white male with a flowing beard, who sits in the sky and tallies the fall of every sparrow is ludicrous. But if by 'God,' one means the set of physical laws that govern the universe, then clearly there is such a God. This God is emotionally unsatisfying... it does not make much sense to pray to the law of gravity.

  Carl Sagan

  Atheist, Fall, Mean

  "Scientists & Their Gods". U.S. News & World Report, Vol. 111, 1991.

  34 Copy quote

  Show source

• Don't be an agnostic. Be something.

  Robert Frost

  Advice

  19 Copy quote

• As a philosopher, if I were speaking to a purely philosophic audience I should say that I ought to describe myself as an Agnostic, because I do not think that there is a conclusive argument by which one can prove that there is not a God. On the other hand, if I am to convey the right impression to the ordinary man in the street I think that I ought to say that I am an Atheist, because, when I say that I cannot prove that there is not a God, I ought to add equally that I cannot prove that there are not the Homeric gods.

  Bertrand Russell

  Atheist, Men, Thinking

  Bertrand Russell, John G. Slater, Peter Köllner (1997). “Last Philosophical Testament: 1943-68”, p.91, Psychology Press

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• My position concerning God is that of an agnostic. I am convinced that a vivid consciousness of the primary importance of moral principles for the betterment and ennoblement of life does not need the idea of a law-giver, especially a law-giver who works on the basis of reward and punishment.

  Albert Einstein

  Law, Punishment, Ideas

  Albert Einstein (2010). “The Ultimate Quotable Einstein”, p.340, Princeton University Press

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God

  Thomas Jefferson

  Religious, Atheist, Faith Religion

  Thomas Jefferson, John Dewey (2008). “The Essential Jefferson”, p.82, Courier Corporation

  26 Copy quote

  Show source