“Who are your favourite heroines in real life? The women of Afghanistan, Iraq, and Iran who risk their lives and their beauty to defy the foulness of theocracy. Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Azar Nafisi as their ideal feminine model.”

The discovery there is no god is a great relief, because if there were, it would be like living in a celestial North Korea if there was one. You would never be able to escape.

We live only a few conscious decades, and we fret ourselves enough for several lifetimes.

The faithful believe that certain truths have been ‘revealed.’ The skeptics and secularists believe that truth is only to be sought by free inquiry and trial and error. Only one of those positions is dogmatic.

I’m not afraid of being dead, that’s to say there’s nothing to be afraid of. I won’t know I’m dead, would be my strong conviction. And if I find that I’m alive in any way at all, that’ll be a pleasant surprise. I quite like surprises.

The search for Nirvana, like the search for Utopia or the end of history or the classless society, is ultimately a futile and dangerous one. It involves, if it does not necessitate, the sleep of reason. There is no escape from anxiety and struggle.

Those who want to be offended don’t have the right to try and close down the newspaper that offends them.

What do you most value in your friends? Their continued existence.

What is it you most dislike? Stupidity, especially in its nastiest forms of racism and superstition.

Thanks to the telescope and the microscope, religion no longer offers an explanation for anything important.

There’s been some research in cognitive science, I’m told, that discloses that there have always been perhaps 10 to 15 percent of people who are, as Pascal puts it, so made that they cannot believe. To us, when people talk about faith, it’s white noise.

I became a journalist because I didn’t want to have to rely on the press for information… I only read it to make sure of whatever everyone else thinks is going on, because it’s useful to know what people think is the news.

One of the most repellent spectacles at election times is the pretense of piety on the part of people running for office.

Take the risk of thinking for yourself.

Philosophy begins where religion ends, just as by analogy chemistry begins where alchemy runs out, and astronomy takes the place of astrology.

No one has the right to tell me what to do because he has a divine warrant.

Since it is obviously inconceivable that all religions can be right, the most reasonable conclusion is that they are all wrong.

Democracy or politics done without values and ideals is dangerous for the country.

I believe that if man and woman cherish the same ideals and think alike, then the marriage can be complementary to each other’s work instead of being a hindrance.

The ideal of service and the urge to practice it form the very heart of education.

Those who would sacrifice a generation to realize an ideal are the enemies of mankind.

Ideals are peaceful. History is violent.

Equality before the law is probably forever unattainable. It is a noble ideal, but it can never be realized, for what men value in this world is not rights but privileges.

There’s no point in comparing an actual, operating system with an ideal system that doesn’t exist.

An idealist is one who, on noticing that roses smell better than a cabbage, concludes that it will also make better soup.