Even if you don’t believe in God, you still have to believe in something that gives meaning
to your life, and shapes your sense of the world.
—Michael Crichton, 2004
Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for
belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones.
—Bertrand Russell, 1950
Disbelief in magic can force a poor soul into believing in government and business.
—Tom Robbins, 1976
***
Faith is, at one and the same time, absolutely necessary and altogether impossible.
—Stanisław Lem, 1976
Piety is sweet to infant minds.
—William Wordsworth, 1814
Faith is the consolation of the wretched and the terror of the happy.
—Luc de Clapiers, 1747
God is the immemorial refuge of the incompetent, the helpless, the miserable.
—H. L. Mencken, 1956
It is for the good of the state that man should be deluded by religion.
—Marcus Terentius Varro, *40 BC
Promises, covenants, and oaths, which are the bonds of human society, can have no hold
upon an atheist.
—John Locke, 1689
It is […] absolutely necessary for princes and people to have deeply engraved in their minds
the notion of a Supreme Being, creator, ruler, remunerator, and avenger. […] If God did not
exist, it would be necessary to invent him.
—Voltaire, 1770
Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate
for the government of any other.
—John Adams, 1798
How many daily read the Word,
And still from vice are not deterred.
—European proverb
I do not believe that, on the balance, religious belief has been a force for good.
—Bertrand Russell, 1928
On Faith and Religion
77