Richard Dawkins Quotes

Quotes about:

• Faith is belief without evidence and reason; coincidentally that's also the definition of delusion.

  Richard Dawkins

  Faith, Definitions, Belief

  183 Copy quote
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  Much as we might wish to believe otherwise, universal love and the welfare of the species as a whole are concepts which simply do not make evolutionary sense.

  Richard Dawkins

  Love, Hope, Wisdom

  The Selfish Gene ch. 1 (1976)

  404 Copy quote

• The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.

  Richard Dawkins

  God, Religious, Atheist

  Richard Dawkins (2008). “The God Delusion”, p.51, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  317 Copy quote
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  Do not indoctrinate your children. Teach them how to think for themselves, how to evaluate evidence, and how to disagree with you.

  Richard Dawkins

  Education, Atheist, Children

  Richard Dawkins (2008). “The God Delusion”, p.300, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  211 Copy quote

• The less you think, the more you believe.

  Richard Dawkins

  Believe, Thinking, Doubt

  134 Copy quote
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  Evolution is just a theory? Well, so is gravity and I don't see you jumping out of buildings.

  Richard Dawkins

  Jumping, Evolution, Building

  183 Copy quote

• The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.

  Richard Dawkins

  Funny, Sarcastic, Atheist

  River Out of Eden ch. 4 (1995)

  127 Copy quote

• How thoughtful of God to arrange matters so that, wherever you happen to be born, the local religion always turns out to be the true one.

  Richard Dawkins

  Thoughtful, Matter, Born

  Twitter post from May 22, 2014

  133 Copy quote

• Religion teaches the dangerous nonsense that death is not the end.

  Richard Dawkins

  Atheism, Nonsense, Ends

  Richard Dawkins (2017). “Science in the Soul: Selected Writings of a Passionate Rationalist”, p.237, Random House

  20 Copy quote

• If something is true, no amount of wishful thinking will change it.

  Richard Dawkins

  Thinking, Wishful Thinking, Ifs

  "The selfish gene's birthday" by Sue Blackmore, www.theguardian.com. March 17, 2006.

  31 Copy quote

• Offense is what people take when they can't take argument.

  Richard Dawkins

  People, Argument, Offense

  17 Copy quote

• We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die, because they are never going to be born. The number of people who could be here, in my place, out number the sand grains in the Sahara. If you think about all the different ways in which our genes could be permuted, you and I are quite grotesquely lucky to be here. The number of events that had to happen in order for you to exist, in order for me to exist... we are privileged to be alive and nd we should make the most of our time on this world.

  Richard Dawkins

  Inspirational, Thinking, Numbers

  Unweaving the Rainbow ch. 1 (1998)

  111 Copy quote

• Faith is one of the world's great evils, comparable to the smallpox virus but harder to eradicate.

  Richard Dawkins

  Mad Cow Disease, Evil, Religion

  "Is Science a Religion?". Humanist, www.skeptical-science.com. January/February 1997.

  57 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.

  80 Copy quote

• Evolution has no long-term goal. There is no long-distance target, no final perfection to serve as a criterion for selection, although human vanity cherishes the absurd notion that our species is the final goal of evolution.

  Richard Dawkins

  Distance, Science, Vanity

  Richard Dawkins (2015). “The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe without Design”, p.58, W. W. Norton & Company

  26 Copy quote

• Religious people are atheists about all other gods, atheists only take it one god further.

  Richard Dawkins

  Religious, Atheist, People

  20 Copy quote

• The total amount of suffering per year in the natural world is beyond all decent contemplation. During the minute that it takes me to compose this sentence, thousands of animals are being eaten alive, many others are running for their lives, whimpering with fear, others are slowly being devoured from within by rasping parasites, thousands of all species are dying of starvation, thirst, and disease. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.

  Richard Dawkins

  Running, Animal, Years

  "River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life". Book by Richard Dawkins, 1995.

  10 Copy quote

• Nature is not cruel, only pitilessly indifferent. This is one of the hardest lessons for humans to learn. We cannot admit that things might be neither good nor evil, neither cruel nor kind, but simply callous-indifferent to all suffering, lacking all purpose.

  Richard Dawkins

  Nature, Learning, Science

  Richard Dawkins (1995). “River out of eden: a Darwinian view of life”, Basic Books (AZ)

  12 Copy quote

• Not only is science corrosive to religion, but religion is corrosive to science. It teaches people to be satisfied with trivial non-explanations and blinds them to the wonderful real explanations that we have within our grasp.

  Richard Dawkins

  Real, People, Religion

  20 Copy quote

• To be fair, much of the Bible is not systematically evil but just plain weird, as you would expect of a chaotically cobbled-together anthology of disjointed documents, composed, revised, translated, distorted and 'improved' by hundreds of anonymous authors, editors and copyists, unknown to us and mostly unknown to each other, spanning nine centuries

  Richard Dawkins

  Biblical, Editors, Evil

  Richard Dawkins (2008). “The God Delusion”, p.268, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  24 Copy quote

• Blasphemy is a Victimless Crime.

  Richard Dawkins

  Crime, Blasphemy

  Twitter post from Aug 28, 2013

  6 Copy quote

• Religion has been a powerful weapon in the hands of governments, in the hands of priests, in the hands of kings who have used it as a weapon to keep down the populace. It is a wonderful way of disciplining people and making them do what you want, to tell them that if they don't do what you want they will, for example, go to Hell.

  Richard Dawkins

  Kings, Powerful, Government

  "Richard Dawkins at the Sydney Writers' Festival". "Science Show" with Robyn Williams, www.abc.net.au. September 8, 2007.

  13 Copy quote

• As a scientist, I am hostile to fundamentalist religion because it actively debauches the scientific enterprise. It teaches us not to change our minds, and not to want to know exciting things that are available to be known. It subverts science and saps the intellect.

  Richard Dawkins

  Philosophical, Fundamentalist Religion, Mind

  7 Copy quote

• Evolution is fundamentally hostile to religion.

  Richard Dawkins

  Evolution, Hostile

  28 Copy quote

• Having a debate with a modern Christian is like punching a sponge.

  Richard Dawkins

  Christian, Religion, Punching

  9 Copy quote

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