“The time has come for people of reason to say: Enough is Enough! Religious faith discourages independent thought, it’s divisive and it’s dangerous.”

It would be intolerant if I advocated the banning of religion, but of course I never have.

The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.

The solution often turns out more beautiful than the puzzle.

It is a deep aesthetic passion to rank with the finest that music and poetry can deliver.

Matter flows from place to place, and momentarily comes together to be you. Some people find that thought disturbing; I find the reality thrilling.

In the beginning was simplicity.

There is something infantile in the presumption that somebody else has a responsibility to give your life meaning and point.

There’s real poetry in the real world. Science is the poetry of reality.

Evolution is just a theory? Well, so is gravity and I don’t see you jumping out of buildings.

The feeling of awed wonder that science can give us is one of the highest experiences of which the human psyche is capable.

Religion is about turning untested belief into unshakable truth through the power of institutions and the passage of time.

Scientific beliefs are supported by evidence, and they get results. Myths and faiths are not and do not.

Today the theory of evolution is about as much open to doubt as the theory that the earth goes round the sun.

Real life seeks the gentle slopes at the back of Mount Improbable, while creationists are blind to all but the daunting precipice at the front.

Do not indoctrinate your children. Teach them how to think for themselves, how to evaluate evidence, and how to disagree with you.

Science is the poetry of reality.

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

We have had plenty of atheist presidents; they just wouldn’t admit it.

With respect to public acknowledgment of religious belief, it is entirely clear from our nation’s historical practices that the Establishment Clause permits this disregard of polytheists and believers in unconcerned deities, just as it permits the disregard of devout atheists.

If only I wasn’t an atheist, I could get away with anything. You’d just ask for forgiveness and then you’d be forgiven. It sounds much better than having to live with guilt.

All worry is atheism, because it is a want of trust in God.

God knows, I’m not the thing I should be, Nor am I even the thing I could be, But twenty times I rather would be An atheist clean, Than under gospel colours hid be Just for a screen.

An atheist may be simply one whose faith and love are concentrated on the impersonal aspects of God.

Atheists have just as much of a right to the public discourse as any … people of any religious faith in this country.