Agnosticism Quotes

• To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible.

  Thomas Aquinas

  Faith, Powerful, Thoughtful

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• An atheist, like a Christian, holds that we can know whether or not there is a God. The Christian holds that we can know there is a God; the atheist, that we can know there is not. The Agnostic suspends judgment, saying that there are not sufficient grounds either for affirmation or for denial. At the same time, an Agnostic may hold that the existence of God, though not impossible, is very improbable; he may even hold it so improbable that it is not worth considering in practice. In that case, he is not far removed from atheism.

  Bertrand Russell

  Christian, Atheist, Practice

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell”, p.557, Routledge

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• I cannot believe in a God who wants to be praised all the time.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Inspirational, Life, Time

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• The beauty of religious mania is that it has the power to explain everything. Once God (or Satan) is accepted as the first cause of everything which happens in the mortal world, nothing is left to chance...logic can be happily tossed out the window.

  Stephen King

  Religious, Atheist, Religion

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• Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable.

  H. L. Mencken

  Faith, Freedom, Believe

  Prejudices, Third Series ch. 14 (1922)

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• Agnosticism is a perfectly respectable and tenable philosophical position; it is not dogmatic and makes no pronouncements about the ultimate truths of the universe. It remains open to evidence and persuasion; lacking faith, it nevertheless does not deride faith. Atheism, on the other hand, is as unyielding and dogmatic about religious belief as true believers are about heathens. It tries to use reason to demolish a structure that is not built upon reason.

  Sydney J. Harris

  Religious, Philosophical, Hands

  Sydney J. Harris (1985). “Pieces of Eight Pa”, Mariner Books

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• I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own -- a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty. Neither can I believe that the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotisms.

  Albert Einstein

  Inspirational, God, Spiritual

  Albert Einstein (2010). “The Ultimate Quotable Einstein”, p.330, Princeton University Press

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• I don't know whether God exists or not. ... Some forms of atheism are arrogant and ignorant and should be rejected, but agnosticism—to admit that we don't know and to search—is all right. ... When I look at what I call the gift of life, I feel a gratitude which is in tune with some religious ideas of God. However, the moment I even speak of it, I am embarrassed that I may do something wrong to God in talking about God.

  Karl Popper

  Gratitude, Religious, Talking

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• I have a great love and respect for religion, great love and respect for atheism. What I hate is agnosticism, people who do not choose.

  Orson Welles

  Hate, People, Great Love

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• Question with boldness even the existence of a god.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Religious, Atheist, Faith Religion

  Thomas Jefferson, Jerry Holmes (2002). “Thomas Jefferson: A Chronology of His Thoughts”, p.90, Rowman & Littlefield

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• Agnosticism has nothing to impart. Its sermons are the exhortations of one who convinces you he stands on nothing and urges you to stand there too.

  Anna Julia Cooper

  Agnostic, Convince, Impart

  Anna Julia Cooper (2016). “A Voice from the South”, p.143, Courier Dover Publications

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• It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.

  Carl Sagan

  Death, Witty, Atheist

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark”, p.32, Ballantine Books

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• My atheism, like that of Spinoza, is true piety towards the universe and denies only gods fashioned by men in their own image, to be servants of their human interests.

  George Santayana

  Atheist, Men, Insightful

  Soliloquies in England and Later Soliloquies "On My Friendly Critics" (1922)

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• Well, I tell you, if I have been wrong in my agnosticism, when I die I'll walk up to God in a manly way and say, Sir, I made an honest mistake.

  H. L. Mencken

  Atheist, Honesty, Mistake

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• The mystery of the beginning of all things is insoluble by us; and I for one must be content to remain an agnostic.

  Charles Darwin

  Inspirational, Atheist, Insightful

  Charles Darwin (2010). “The Works of Charles Darwin, Volume 29: “Erasmus Darwin” by Ernest Krause, with a Preliminary Notice by Charles Darwin; “The Autobiography of Charles Darwin” Edited by Nora Barlow; and Consolidated Index”, p.124, NYU Press

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• Emotionally I am an atheist. I don't have the evidence to prove that God doesn't exist, but I so strongly suspect he doesn't that I don't want to waste my time.

  Isaac Asimov

  Atheist, Science, Religion

  Free Inquiry Journal, Spring 1982.

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• I believe in God, only I spell it Nature.

  Frank Lloyd Wright

  God, Atheist, Nature

  Quote magazine, August 14, 1966.

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• I am an atheist, out and out. It took me a long time to say it. I've been an atheist for years and years, but somehow I felt it was intellectually unrespectable to say that one is an atheist, because it assumed knowledge that one didn't have. Somehow it was better to say one was a humanist or agnostic. I don't have the evidence to prove that God doesn't exist, but I so strongly suspect that he doesn't that I don't want to waste my time.

  Isaac Asimov

  Atheist, Science, Years

  Free Inquiry Journal, Spring 1982.

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• Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Religious, Atheist, Fear

  Thomas Jefferson, Jerry Holmes (2002). “Thomas Jefferson: A Chronology of His Thoughts”, p.90, Rowman & Littlefield

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• Mario, what do you get when you cross an insomniac, an unwilling agnostic and a dyslexic?

  David Foster Wallace

  Pain, Agnostic, Infinite Jest

  David Foster Wallace (2011). “Infinite Jest”, p.39, Hachette UK

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• There may be fairies at the bottom of the garden. There is no evidence for it, but you can't prove that there aren't any, so shouldn't we be agnostic with respect to fairies?

  Richard Dawkins

  Respect, Atheist, Learning

  Speech at the Edinburgh International Science Festival, April 15, 1992.

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• I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do, because I notice it always coincides with their own desires.

  Susan B. Anthony

  Inspirational, God, Death

  Lynn Sherr, Susan B. Anthony (1995). “Failure Is Impossible: Susan B. Anthony in Her Own Words”, Crown

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• As a philosopher, if I were speaking to a purely philosophic audience I should say that I ought to describe myself as an Agnostic, because I do not think that there is a conclusive argument by which one can prove that there is not a God. On the other hand, if I am to convey the right impression to the ordinary man in the street I think that I ought to say that I am an Atheist, because, when I say that I cannot prove that there is not a God, I ought to add equally that I cannot prove that there are not the Homeric gods.

  Bertrand Russell

  Atheist, Men, Thinking

  Bertrand Russell, John G. Slater, Peter Köllner (1997). “Last Philosophical Testament: 1943-68”, p.91, Psychology Press

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• Agnosticism is not properly described as a "negative" creed, nor indeed as a creed of any kind, except in so far as it expresses absolute faith in the validity of a principle which is as much ethical as intellectual.

  Thomas Huxley

  Intellectual, Principles, Negative

  Thomas Henry Huxley (2012). “Lectures and Essays”, p.247, tredition

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• I am an atheist, out and out. It took me a long time to say it.

  Isaac Asimov

  Atheist, Long, Atheism

  Free Inquiry Journal, Spring 1982.

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