God Is Not Great Quotes

• Many religions now come before us with ingratiating smirks and outspread hands, like an unctuous merchant in a bazaar. They offer consolation and solidarity and uplift, competing as they do in a marketplace. But we have a right to remember how barbarically they behaved when they were strong and were making an offer that people could not refuse.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Uplifting, Strong, Atheist

  Christopher Hitchens (2011). “God is Not Great”, p.51, Atlantic Books Ltd

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  Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding.

  Albert Einstein

  Love, Inspirational, Life

  Albert Einstein (2010). “The Ultimate Quotable Einstein”, p.252, Princeton University Press

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• To 'choose' dogma and faith over doubt and experience is to throw out the ripening vintage and to reach greedily for the Kool-Aid.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Atheist, Vintage, Doubt

  Christopher Hitchens (2012). “Long Live Hitch: Three Classic Books in One Volume”, p.264, Atlantic Books Ltd

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• Human decency is not derived from religion. It precedes it.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Atheist, Religion, Atheism

  Christopher Hitchens (2012). “Long Live Hitch: Three Classic Books in One Volume”, p.253, Atlantic Books Ltd

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• Religion is man-made. Even the men who made it cannot agree on what their prophets or redeemers or gurus actually said or did.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Men, He Man, Guru

  Christopher Hitchens (2011). “God is Not Great”, p.13, Atlantic Books Ltd

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• A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word, 'darkness' on the walls of his cell.

  C. S. Lewis

  God, Wisdom, Atheist

  C. S. Lewis (2003). “A Mind Awake: An Anthology of C. S. Lewis”, p.87, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Violent, irrational, intolerant, allied to racism and tribalism and bigotry, invested in ignorance and hostile to free inquiry, contemptuous of women and coercive toward children: organized religion ought to have a great deal on its conscience.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Children, Ignorance, Racism

  Christopher Hitchens (2011). “God is Not Great”, p.44, Atlantic Books Ltd

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• Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.

  Marcus Aurelius

  Life, God, Death

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• If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.

  Albert Einstein

  God, Religious, Atheist

  Albert Einstein (2015). “Bite-Size Einstein: Quotations on Just About Everything from the Greatest Mind of the Twentieth Century”, p.40, St. Martin's Press

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• Our belief is not a belief. Our principles are not a faith. We do not rely soley upon science and reason, because these are necessary rather than sufficient factors, but we distrust anything that contradicts science or outrages reason. We may differ on many things, but what we respect is free inquiry, openmindedness, and the pursuit of ideas for their own sake.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Atheist, Science, Ideas

  Christopher Hitchens (2012). “Long Live Hitch: Three Classic Books in One Volume”, p.13, Atlantic Books Ltd

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  If religious instruction were not allowed until the child had attained the age of reason, we would be living in a quite different world.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Religious, Children, Religion

  Christopher Hitchens (2012). “Long Live Hitch: Three Classic Books in One Volume”, p.209, Atlantic Books Ltd

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• The Bible may, indeed does, contain a warrant for trafficking in humans, for ethnic cleansing, for slavery, for bride-price, and for indiscriminate massacre, but we are not bound by any of it because it was put together by crude, uncultured human mammals.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Motivational, Atheist, Religion

  Christopher Hitchens (2011). “God is Not Great”, p.75, Atlantic Books Ltd

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• The person who is certain, and who claims divine warrant for his certainty, belongs now to the infancy of our species.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Humility, Divine, Claims

  Christopher Hitchens (2012). “Long Live Hitch: Three Classic Books in One Volume”, p.19, Atlantic Books Ltd

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• The governor of Texas, who, when asked if the Bible should also be taught in Spanish, replied that 'if English was good enough for Jesus, then it's good enough for me.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Jesus, Texas, Taught

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• If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him.

  Voltaire

  God, Atheist, Religion

  Epitres no. 96, "A l'Auteur du Livre des Trois Imposteurs" (1770) See Ovid 2

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• There are days when I miss my old convictions as if they were an amputated limb. But in general I feel better, and no less radical, and you will feel better too, I guarantee, once you leave hold of the doctrinaire and allow your chainless mind to do its own thinking.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Atheist, Feel Better, Thinking

  Christopher Hitchens (2012). “Long Live Hitch: Three Classic Books in One Volume”, p.150, Atlantic Books Ltd

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• Beware the irrational, however seductive. Shun the 'transcendent' and all who invite you to subordinate or annihilate yourself. Distrust compassion; prefer dignity for yourself and others. Don't be afraid to be thought arrogant or selfish. Picture all experts as if they were mammals. Never be a spectator of unfairness or stupidity. Seek out argument and disputation for their own sake; the grave will supply plenty of time for silence. Suspect your own motives, and all excuses. Do not live for others any more than you would expect others to live for you.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Courage, Selfish, Science

  Christopher Hitchens (2009). “Letters to a Young Contrarian”, p.140, Basic Books

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• Faith: not wanting to know what is true.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Faith, Religious, Atheist

  Friedrich Nietzsche (1977). “The Portable Nietzsche”, p.383, Penguin

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• Today the least educated of my children knows much more about the natural order than any of the founders of religion, and one would think-though the connection is not a fully demonstrable one-that this is why they seem so uninterested in sending fellow humans to hell.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Children, Thinking, Order

  Christopher Hitchens (2012). “Long Live Hitch: Three Classic Books in One Volume”, p.67, Atlantic Books Ltd

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• Religion comes from the period of human prehistory where nobody - not even the mighty Democritus who concluded that all matter was made from atoms - had the smallest idea of what was going on. It comes from the bawling and fearful infancy of our species, and is a babyish attempt to meet our inescapable demand for knowledge. Today the least educated of my children knows much more about the natural order than any of the founders of religion.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Children, Order, Ideas

  Christopher Hitchens (2012). “Long Live Hitch: Three Classic Books in One Volume”, p.67, Atlantic Books Ltd

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• I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly.

  Albert Einstein

  God, Religious, Atheist

  Albert Einstein (2013). “Albert Einstein, The Human Side: Glimpses from His Archives”, p.43, Princeton University Press

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• Distrust compassion; prefer dignity for yourself and others. Don't be afraid to be thought arrogant or selfish.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Selfish, Compassion, Mammals

  Christopher Hitchens (2005). “Letters to a Young Contrarian”, p.140, Basic Books

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• It seems to me that the idea of a personal God is an anthropological concept which I cannot take seriously. I also cannot imagine some will or goal outside the human sphere... Science has been charged with undermining morality, but the charge is unjust. A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.

  Albert Einstein

  Death, Religious, Atheist

  "Religion and Science", New York Times Magazine, November 9, 1930.

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• I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation and is but a reflection of human frailty.

  Albert Einstein

  Love, Inspirational, Life

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

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• There, but for the grace of God, goes John Bradford.

  John Bradford

  Grace, Insult, Sleazes

  "Problems in the Relations of God and Man" by Clement Charles Julian Webb, (p. 107), 1911.

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