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

Without doubt God is the universal moving force, but each being is moved according to the nature that God has given it. He directs angels, man, animals, brute matter, in sum all created things—but each according to its nature—and man having been created free, he is freely led. This rule is truly the eternal law and in it we must believe.

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.

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.

God is a complex of ideas formed by the tribe, the nation, and humanity, which awake and organize social feelings and aim to link the individual to society and to bridle the zoological individualism.

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

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

Whatsoever is, is in God.

Kill a man, and you are an assassin. Kill millions of men, and you are a conqueror. Kill everyone, and you are a god.

One religion is as true as another.

God is a concept by which we measure our pain.

I can’t see (or feel) the conflict between love and religion. To me they’re the same thing.

The Church says that the earth is flat, but I know that it is round, for I have seen the shadow on the moon, and I have more faith in the shadow than in the Church.