Agnosticism Quotes

• To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible.

  Thomas Aquinas

  Faith, Powerful, Thoughtful

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• An atheist, like a Christian, holds that we can know whether or not there is a God. The Christian holds that we can know there is a God; the atheist, that we can know there is not. The Agnostic suspends judgment, saying that there are not sufficient grounds either for affirmation or for denial. At the same time, an Agnostic may hold that the existence of God, though not impossible, is very improbable; he may even hold it so improbable that it is not worth considering in practice. In that case, he is not far removed from atheism.

  Bertrand Russell

  Christian, Atheist, Practice

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell”, p.557, Routledge

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• I cannot believe in a God who wants to be praised all the time.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Inspirational, Life, Time

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable.

  H. L. Mencken

  Faith, Freedom, Believe

  Prejudices, Third Series ch. 14 (1922)

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• The beauty of religious mania is that it has the power to explain everything. Once God (or Satan) is accepted as the first cause of everything which happens in the mortal world, nothing is left to chance...logic can be happily tossed out the window.

  Stephen King

  Religious, Atheist, Religion

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• Agnosticism is a perfectly respectable and tenable philosophical position; it is not dogmatic and makes no pronouncements about the ultimate truths of the universe. It remains open to evidence and persuasion; lacking faith, it nevertheless does not deride faith. Atheism, on the other hand, is as unyielding and dogmatic about religious belief as true believers are about heathens. It tries to use reason to demolish a structure that is not built upon reason.

  Sydney J. Harris

  Religious, Philosophical, Hands

  Sydney J. Harris (1985). “Pieces of Eight Pa”, Mariner Books

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• I don't know whether God exists or not. ... Some forms of atheism are arrogant and ignorant and should be rejected, but agnosticism—to admit that we don't know and to search—is all right. ... When I look at what I call the gift of life, I feel a gratitude which is in tune with some religious ideas of God. However, the moment I even speak of it, I am embarrassed that I may do something wrong to God in talking about God.

  Karl Popper

  Gratitude, Religious, Talking

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• If there were no God, there would be no atheists.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  God, Atheist, Christian Inspirational

  "Where All Roads Lead" by Gilbert K. Chesterton, 1922.

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• I am an atheist, out and out. It took me a long time to say it.

  Isaac Asimov

  Atheist, Long, Atheism

  Free Inquiry Journal, Spring 1982.

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• Agnosticism has nothing to impart. Its sermons are the exhortations of one who convinces you he stands on nothing and urges you to stand there too.

  Anna Julia Cooper

  Agnostic, Convince, Impart

  Anna Julia Cooper (2016). “A Voice from the South”, p.143, Courier Dover Publications

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• A man full of faith is simply one who has lost the capacity for clear and realistic thought.

  H. L. Mencken

  Faith, Atheist, Men

  H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.11, Vintage

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• 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

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• If mankind were born tomorrow it would divide into groups; each would scramble to invent their one and only god, and set about butchering each-other.

  Voltaire

  Groups, Tomorrow, Born

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• A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, of the manifestations of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty - it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute the truly religious attitude; in this sense, and in this alone, I am a deeply religious man.

  Albert Einstein

  God, Religious, Attitude

  Albert Einstein (2011). “The World As I See It”, p.15, Open Road Media

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• I am aware that the assumed instinctive belief in God has been used by many persons as an argument for his existence. The idea of a universal and beneficent Creator does not seem to arise in the mind of man, until he has been elevated by long-continued culture.

  Charles Darwin

  Men, Ideas, Long

  Charles Darwin (1871). “The Descent of Man: And Selection in Relation to Sex”, p.395

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• My goal is to try to get people into a state of generalized agnosticism, not agnosticism about God alone, but agnosticism about everything.

  Robert Anton Wilson

  People, Goal, Trying

  "Robert Anton Wilson : Searching For Cosmic Intelligence". Interview with Jeffrey Elliot, 1980.

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• We need to be agnostics first and then there is some chance at arriving at a sensible system of belief.

  D. Elton Trueblood

  Arriving, Needs, Firsts

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• But I own that I cannot see as plainly as others do, and I should wish to do, evidence of design and beneficence on all sides of us. There seems to me too much misery in the world. I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created that a cat should play with mice.

  Charles Darwin

  Cat, Play, Design

  Charles Darwin (2015). “Darwin on Evolution: Words of Wisdom from the Father of Evolution”, p.28, Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.

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• I oscillate between agnosticism and atheism.

  Brad Pitt

  Atheism

  "The Many Revolutions of Brad Pitt" by Stephen Galloway, www.hollywoodreporter.com. January 25, 2012.

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• Agnosticism simply means that a man shall not say that he knows or believes that for which he has no grounds for professing to believe.

  Thomas Huxley

  Believe, Mean, Men

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• 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

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• Emotionally I am an atheist. I don't have the evidence to prove that God doesn't exist, but I so strongly suspect he doesn't that I don't want to waste my time.

  Isaac Asimov

  Atheist, Science, Religion

  Free Inquiry Journal, Spring 1982.

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• Well, I tell you, if I have been wrong in my agnosticism, when I die I'll walk up to God in a manly way and say, Sir, I made an honest mistake.

  H. L. Mencken

  Atheist, Honesty, Mistake

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• Mario, what do you get when you cross an insomniac, an unwilling agnostic and a dyslexic?

  David Foster Wallace

  Pain, Agnostic, Infinite Jest

  David Foster Wallace (2011). “Infinite Jest”, p.39, Hachette UK

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• 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.

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