God is a concept by which we measure our pain.

An irreligious man is not one who denies the gods of the majority, but one who applies to the gods the opinions of the majority. For what most men say about the gods are not ideas derived from sensation, but false opinions, according to which the greatest evils come to the wicked, and the greatest blessings come to the good from the gods.

Educate people without religion and you make them but clever devils.

To doubt everything or to believe everything are two equally convenient solutions; both dispense with the need for thought.

Religion! 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.

We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.

The state dictates and coerces; religion teaches and persuades. The state enacts laws; religion gives commandments. The state is armed with physical force and makes use of it if need be; the force of religion is love and benevolence.

The most dangerous madmen are those created by religion, and people whose aim is to disrupt society always know how to make good use of them.

I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute, where no Catholic prelate would tell the president (should he be a Catholic) how to act and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote.

If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.

Religion is by no means a proper subject of conversation in mixed company.

The nature of God is a circle, of which the center is everywhere and the circumference is nowhere.

Among all nations, through the darkest polytheism glimmer some faint sparks of monotheism.