“Only to finally get the barbarian pleasure to punish them in an excessive way, of no use for himself, without them changing their ways and without their example preventing others from committing crimes.”

People have suffered and become insane for centuries by the thought of eternal punishment after death. Wouldn’t it be better to depend on blind matter… than a god who puts out traps for people, invites them to sin, and allows them to sin and commit crimes he could prevent.

Can theology give to the mind the ineffable boon of conceiving that which no man is in a capacity to comprehend? Can it procure to its agents the marvellous faculty of having precise ideas of a god composed of so many contradictory qualities?

It is only by dispelling the clouds and phantoms of religion that we shall discover truth, reason and morality.

If the ignorance of nature gave birth to gods, the knowledge of nature is calculated to destroy them.

Don’t say anything about this to anybody. Any one would say that I am trying to play the good-natured philosopher. I am neither benefactor nor philosopher, but just a human being, and my charities are the pleasantest expense I have on these journeys.

The savage god of the Mexicans cannot be satisfied without thousands of mortals which are immolated to his sanguinary appetite.

The Jehovah of the Jews is a suspicious tyrant, who breathes nothing but blood, murder, and carnage, and who demands that they should nourish him with the vapours of animals.

All children are born Atheists; they have no idea of God.

The source of man’s unhappiness is his ignorance of Nature.

When we examine the opinions of men, we find that nothing is more uncommon, than common sense; or, in other words, they lack judgment to discover plain truths, or to reject absurdities, and palpable contradictions.

The Jupiter of the Pagans is a lascivious monster. The Moloch of the Phoenicians is a cannibal. The pure mind of the Christians resolved, in order to appease his fury, to crucify his own son.

The atheist . . . destroys the chimeras which afflict the human race, and so leads men back to nature, to experience and to reason.

It is thus superstition infatuates man from his infancy, fills him with vanity, and enslaves him with fanaticism.

Tolerance and freedom of thought are the veritable antidotes to religious fanaticism.

These principles, universally recognized, are at fault when the question of the existence of God is considered; what has been said of Him is either unintelligible or perfectly contradictory; and for this reason must appear impossible to every man.

The inward persuasion that we are free to do, or not to do a thing, is but a mere illusion. If we trace the true principle of our actions, we shall find, that they are always necessary consequences of our volitions and desires, which are never in our power.

Creativity is magic. Don’t examine it too closely.

It hinders the creative work of the mind if the intellect examines too closely the ideas as they pour in.

If a dog will not come to you after having looked you in the face, you should go home and examine your conscience.

This religion takes away the courage of thinking of unusual things and prohibits self-examination above all as the most egregious of sins. It is one step away from protestantism.

Many people excuse their own faults but judge other persons harshly. We should reverse this attitude by excusing others’ shortcomings and by harshly examining our own.

Mathematics, in the development of its ideas, has only to take account of the immanent reality of its concepts and has absolutely no obligation to examine their transient reality.

The only meaning of life worth caring about is one that can withstand our best efforts to examine it.

Sometimes you learn more from losing than winning. Losing forces you to reexamine.