Some excellent quotes contained in this refreshing thread. It is good to see ATS laugh for a change...

“The world is a dangerous place. Not because of the people who are evil; but because of the people who don't do anything about it.” Albert Einstein

“If at first, the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it” Albert Einstein

“The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.” Albert Einstein

Great ideas often receive violent opposition from mediocre minds.

“No drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we're looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn't test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power.” P. J. O'Rourke


I assert most unhesitatingly, that the religion of the South is a mere covering for the most horrid crimes-- a justifier of the most appalling barbarity, a sanctifier of the most hateful frauds, and a dark shelter under which the darkest, foulest, grossest, and most infernal deeds of slaveholders find the strongest protection. Where I to be again reduced to the chains of slavery, next to that enslavement, I should regard being the slave of a religious master the greatest calamity that could befall me. . . I. . . hate the corrupt, slaveholding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of this land.-Frederick Douglass (After the Escape)

"The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing." Albert Einstein

When I do good, I feel good; when I do bad, I feel bad. That's my religion.--Abraham Lincoln, 16th U.S. President [1861-1865]. From Henry O. Dormann, compiler, The Speaker's Book of Quotations, New York: Ballantine Books, 1987, p. 127.)

There has never been a good war or a bad peace.-Benjamin Franklin

Of all the systems of religion that ever were invented, there is no more derogatory to the Almighty, more unedifiying to man, more repugnant to reason, and more contradictory to itself than this thing called Christianity.
-Thomas Paine (The Age of Reason)


For ages, a deadly conflict has been waged between a few brave men and women of thought and genius upon the one side, and the great ignorant religious mass on the other. This is the war between Science and Faith. The few have appealed to reason, to honor, to law, to freedom, to the known, and to happiness here in this world. The many have appealed to prejudice, to fear, to miracle, to slavery, to the unknown, and to misery hereafter. The few have said "Think" The many have said "Believe!"-Robert Ingersoll, (Gods)

Where knowledge ends, religion begins.-Benjamin Disraeli

Man is a Religious Animal. He is the only Religious Animal. He is the only animal that has the True Religion - several of them. He is the only animal that loves his neighbor as himself and cuts his throat if his theology isn't straight.-Mark Twain

Freethinkers are those who are willing to use their minds without prejudice and without fearing to understand things that clash with their own customs, privileges, or beliefs. This state of mind is not common, but it is essential for right thinking; where it is absent, discussion is apt to become worse than useless.-Leo Tolstoy (On Life and Essays on Religion)

Religion is a disease. It is born of fear; it compensates through hate in the guise of authority, revelation. Religion, enthroned in a powerful social organization, can become incredibly sadistic. No religion has been more cruel than the Christian. -Dr. George A. Dorsey


You find as you look around the world that every single bit of progress in humane feeling, every improvement in the criminal law, every step toward the diminution of war, every step toward better treatment of the colored races, or every mitigation of slavery, every moral progress that there has been in the world, has been consistently opposed by the organized churches of the world. I say quite deliberately that the Christian religion, as organized in its churches, has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -Bertrand Russell (Why I Am Not a Christian)

"Some of the biggest men in the United States, in the field of commerce and manufacture, are afraid of something. They know that there is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, that they had better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it."--Woodrow Wilson

Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. If we continue to develop our technology without wisdom or prudence, our servant may prove to be our executioner. --General Omar Bradley


"Anyone who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds himself silenced with surprising effectiveness. A genuinely unfashionable opinion is almost never given a fair hearing." - George Orwell

A dictatorship would be a heck of a lot easier, there's no question about it.
George W. Bush

Of all the creatures, man is the most detestable. Of the entire brood, he is the only one that possesses malice. He is the only creature that inflicts pain for sport, knowing it to be pain. The fact that man knows right from wrong proves his intellectual superiority to the other creatures; but the fact that he can do wrong proves his moral inferiority to any creature that cannot. - Mark Twain

The dog is a gentleman; I hope to go to his heaven, not man's. Letter to W.D. Howells, 2 April 1899

I do not consider it an insult, but rather a compliment to be called an agnostic. I do not pretend to know where many ignorant men are sure -- that is all that agnosticism means. - Clarence Darrow Scopes trial, Dayton, Tennessee, July 13, 1925

Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction. - Blaise Pascal


When we blindly adopt a religion, a political system, a literary dogma, we become automatons. We cease to grow. - Anais Nin


"Of all the animals, man is the only one that is cruel. He is the only one that inflicts pain for the pleasure of doing it." - Mark Twain



[edit on 4-12-2008 by ofhumandescent]