“Take man’s most fantastic invention- God. Man invents God in the image of his longings, in the image of what he wants to be, then proceeds to imitate that image, vie with it, and strive to overcome it.”

The education explosion is producing a vast number of people who want to live significant, important lives but lack the ability to satisfy this craving for importance by individual achievement. The country is being swamped with nobodies who want to be somebodies.

It is the malady of our age that the young are so busy teaching us that they have no time left to learn.

The creative mind is the playful mind. Philosophy is the play and dance of ideas.

Our frustration is greater when we have much and want more than when we have nothing and want some. We are less dissatisfied when we lack many things than when we seem to lack but one thing.

We lie loudest when we lie to ourselves.

To be fully alive is to feel that everything is possible.

I have a premonition that will not leave me: as it goes with Israel so will it go with all of us. Should Israel perish, the holocaust will be upon us.

Anger is a prelude to courage.

The passion for equality is partly a passion for anonymity: to be one thread of the many which make up a tunic; one thread not distinguishable from the others. No one can then point us out, measure us against others and expose our inferiority.

Rudeness is a weak imitation of strength.

The future belongs to the learners-not the knowers.

Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life.

Rudeness is the weak man’s limitation of strength.

Nothing comes easily. My work smells of sweat.

Should Americans begin to hate foreigners wholeheartedly, it will be an indication that they have lost confidence in their own way of life.

The beginning of thought is in disagreement – not only with others but also with ourselves.

If there is a God, it’s going to be a whole lot bigger and a whole lot more incomprehensible than anything that any theologian of any religion has ever proposed.

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.

If the gods do evil then they are not gods.

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with senses, reason, and intellect has intended us to forego their use.

What is wrong with inciting intense dislike of a religion if the activities or teachings of that religion are so outrageous, irrational or abusive of human rights that they deserve to be intensely disliked?

Communism begins where atheism begins.

Where we have strong emotions, we’re liable to fool ourselves.

An atheist is someone who is certain that God does not exist, someone who has compelling evidence against the existence of God.