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He was an embittered atheist (the sort of atheist who does not so much disbelieve in God as personally dislike Him), and took a sort of pleasure in thinking that human affairs would never improve. George Orwell, Down and Out in Paris and London, 1933
People who are atheists, freethinkers, or humanists (who comprise approximately one-fifth to one-quarter of the world’s population) may find much to help them in their never-ending quest for genuine meaning in their lives. Wendell W Watters, Deadly Doctrine: Health, Illness, and Christian God-Talk
If there is a God, atheism must seem to Him as less of an insult than religion. Edmond de Goncourt
I’m an atheist and I thank God for it. George Bernard Shaw
I'm an atheist. Thank God. Dave Allen
God is dead not because He doesn’t exist, but because we live, play, procreate, govern, and die as though He doesn’t. Chuck Colson, counsel to Richard Nixon
Nobody talks so constantly about God as those who insist that there is no God. Heywood Broun
It has been said that the highest praise of God consists in the denial of Him by the atheist, who finds creation so perfect that he can dispense with a creator. Marcel Proust
The real attitude of sin in the heart towards God is that of being without God; it is pride, the worship of myself, that is the great atheistic fact in human life. Oswald Chambers
It is the final proof of God’s omnipotence that he need not exist in order to save us. Peter de Vries, The Mackerel Plaza, 1958
Nothing is more remarkable than the spread of scepticism or rationalism during the latter half of my life. Charles Darwin, Autobiography: Religious Belief
Politics is action and all action is but a flaw in the Perfection of inaction, which is peace, just as all being is but a flaw in the perfection of non-being. Which is God. For if God is perfection and the only perfection is in non-being, then God is non-being. Then God is nothing. Nothing can give no basis for the criticisms of Thing in its thingness. Then where do you get anything to say? Robert Penn Warren, All the King’s Men
I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers. It isn’t just that I don’t believe in God and, naturally, I hope that I’m right in my belief. It’s that I hope there is no God! I don’t want there to be a God; I don’t want the universe to be like that. Thomas Nagel
The atheist explanation flounders when confronted with all these facts: the complexity of the cell, the fine-tuning of universe, the fact of morality, the depth of human evil, the reality of morality in the world – what about the God explanation? Denish D’Souza v Christopher Hitches: The God Debate
Man is by constitution a religious animal; atheism is against not only our reason, but our instincts. Edmund Burke
She believed in nothing. Only her scepticism kept her from being an atheist. Jean-Paul Sartre
That God does not exist, I cannot deny. That my whole being cries out for God I cannot forget. Jean-Paul Sartre
Even atheists often betray a tendency to give purpose and meaning to events in their life that really they shouldn’t. Derren Brown: Fear and Faith, Channel 4 2012
No philosophy, no religion, has ever brought so glad a message to the world as this good news of Atheism. Annie Besant
The only position that leaves me with no cognitive dissonance is atheism. It is not a creed. Death is certain, replacing both the siren-song of Paradise and the dread of Hell. Life on this earth, with all its mystery and beauty and pain, is then to be lived far more intensely: we stumble and get up, we are sad, confident, insecure, feel loneliness and joy and love. There is nothing more; but I want nothing more. Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Infidel
In the old days it was not called the Holiday Season: the Christians called it ‘Christmas’ and went to church; the Jews called it ‘Hanukkah’ and went to synagogue; the atheists went to parties and drank. People passing each other on the street would say ‘Merry Christmas!’ or ‘Happy Hanukkah!’ or (to the atheists) ‘Look out for the wall’! Dave Barry
It’s surprising to me how many of my friends send Christmas cards, or holiday cards, including my atheist and secular friends. Christopher Hitchens
One of the moral superiorities of Atheism is we don’t particularly want it to be true that we shall be annihilated when we die ... We are willing to face it since the evidence for the contrary appears to be trivial or non-existent. Christopher Hitchens, Collision: Christopher Hitchens v Douglas Wilson
It offers the chance of living without illusion. Christopher Hitchens v Rabbi David Wolpe, Boston 2010
You don’t become an atheist so much as you find out that’s what you are. There’s no moment of conversion. Christopher Hitchens, interview Divine Impulses
I am not even an atheist so much as an antitheist; I not only maintain that all religions are versions of the same untruth, but I hold that the influence of churches and the effect of religious belief, is positively harmful. Reviewing the false claims of religion I do not wish, as some sentimental materialists affect to wish, that they were true. I do not envy believers their faith. I am relieved to think that the whole story is a sinister fairy tale; life would be miserable if what the faithful affirmed was actually true ... There may be people who wish to live their lives under cradle-to-grave divine supervision, a permanent surveillance and monitoring. But I cannot imagine anything more horrible or grotesque. Christopher Hitchens
Well you know why atheists are to be pitied, don’t you? They’ve no-one to speak to when receiving a blow-job. Christopher Hitchens
I refer to this as luxury atheism. Peter Hitchens v Christopher Hitchens 2008
Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism for atheism ever conceived. Isaac Asimov
Atheism is against the law, isn’t it? It isn’t well – it’s un-American isn’t it? (World War II & Atheism) Doc, I don’t want to fly any more – it’s dangerous. Catch 22 1970 Starring Alan Arkin & Martin Balsam & Richard Benjamin & Arthur Garfunkel & Jack Gilford & Anthony Perkins & Martin Sheen & Jon Voight & Orson Welles & Buck Henry & Bob Newhart & Paula Prentiss et al, director Mike Nichols, Colonel
Everyone in Elizabethan England hates atheists. Dr Ian Mortimer, The Time Traveller’s Guide to Elizabethan England I: The Common People, BBC 2013
When I told the people of Northern Ireland that I was an atheist, a woman in the audience stood up and said, ‘Yes, but is it the God of the Catholics or the God of the Protestants in whom you don’t believe?’ Quentin Crisp, attributions & variations
To you I’m an atheist; to God, I’m the Loyal Opposition. Woody Allen