Top 10 Atheism Quotes

There are hundreds of great atheism quotes out there. Like most skillful turns of phrase, they all sound good. But there are many I disagree with, for example “All thinking men are atheists” (Ernest Hemmingway).

Or consider this Julian Baggini quote: “Goblins, hobbits… truly everlasting gobstoppers… God is just one of the things that atheists don’t believe in, it just happens to be the thing that, for historical reasons, gave them their name.” Actually, no. Perhaps we could say that God is just one of many things that naturalists don’t believe in, or something like that, but atheism is defined only by a lack of belief in gods.

There are hundreds of other atheism quotes to choose from, but these are the ones that strike me most deeply right now.

My 10 favorite atheism quotes

When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.

Stephen Roberts

When I was a kid I had an imaginary friend and I used to think that he went everywhere with me, and that I could talk to him and that he could hear me, and that he could grant me wishes and stuff. And then I grew up, and I stopped going to church.

Jimmy Carr

Believe nothing,

No matter where you read it,

Or who has said it,

Not even if I have said it,

Unless it agrees with your own reason

And your own common sense.

Buddha

To understand via the heart is not to understand.

Michel de Montaigne

I don’t know if God exists, but it would be better for His reputation if He didn’t.

Jules Renard

Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day; teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime; give a man religion and he will die praying for a fish.

Anonymous

Do not pass by my epitaph, traveler.

But having stopped, listen and learn, then go your way.

There is no boat in Hades, no ferryman Charon,

No caretaker Aiakos, no dog Cerberus.

All we who are dead below

Have become bones and ashes, but nothing else.

I have spoken to you honestly, go on, traveler,

Lest even while dead I seem talkative to you.

Ancient Roman tombstone

An atheist doesn’t have to be someone who thinks he has a proof that there can’t be a god. He only has to be someone who believes that the evidence on the God question is at a similar level to the evidence on the werewolf question.

John McCarthy

Men never commit evil so fully and joyfully as when they do it for religious convictions.

Blaise Pascal

Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful.

Anonymous