By night an atheist half believes a God.
—Edward Young, c. 1745
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Quotes
The various modes of religion which prevailed in the Roman world were all considered by the people as equally true, by the philosophers equally false, and by the magistrate as equally useful.
—Edward Gibbon, 1776There is a demon who puts wings on certain tales and launches them like eagles out into space.
—Alexandre Dumas, 1846It is not light that we need, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake.
—Frederick Douglass, 1852Religion! How it dominates man’s mind, how it humiliates and degrades his soul. God is everything, man is nothing, says religion. But out of that nothing God has created a kingdom so despotic, so tyrannical, so cruel, so terribly exacting that naught but gloom and tears and blood have ruled the world since gods began.
—Emma Goldman, 1910Weaseling out of things is important to learn. It’s what separates us from the animals—except the weasel.
—The Simpsons, 1993Uprootedness is by far the most dangerous malady to which human societies are exposed, for it is a self-propagating one.
—Simone Weil, 1943We have to ask ourselves whether medicine is to remain a humanitarian and respected profession or a new but depersonalized science in the service of prolonging life rather than diminishing human suffering.
—Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, 1969Power is so apt to be insolent, and Liberty to be saucy, that they are very seldom upon good terms.
—George Savile, c. 1690The misfortune of the man of color is having been enslaved. The misfortune and inhumanity of the white man are having killed man somewhere.
—Frantz Fanon, 1952You never enjoy the world aright, till the sea itself floweth in your veins, till you are clothed with the heavens, and crowned with the stars.
—Thomas Traherne, c. 1670Every man sees in his relatives, and especially in his cousins, a series of grotesque caricatures of himself.
—H.L. Mencken, 1919The human working stock is of interest only insofar as it is profitable.
—Simone de Beauvoir, 1970