Meditation 860
Quotations L
I love quotations because it is a joy to find thoughts one might have, beautifully expressed with much authority by someone recognized wiser than oneself. Marlene Dietrich
This is an occasional selection of quotations mostly, but not entirely, relevant to agnosticism, rationalism, and free thought. This is the fiftieth in an apparently unending series. Quotations are indexed by author and by opening words to assist anyone trying to locate a specific one. Quotations are also available as a set of downloadable pdf files (menu to the left.) Suggestions for previously unused quotations are always welcome.
- So long as I have a seat in this house, so long as I occupy the position I do now, whenever it shall become my duty to take a stand on any question whatsoever, that stand I will take, not from the point of view of Roman Catholicism, not from the point of view of Protestantism, but from a point of view which can appeal to the consciences of all men, irrespective of their particular faith, upon grounds which can be occupied by all men who love justice, freedom, and toleration. Sir Wilfred Laurier
- Where knowledge is denied, faith comes in. Frederick P. Grove
- I've been so relieved and so grateful not to have a god to believe in. Cloris Leachman
- Ghosts! There are no ghosts in Canada. The country is too new for ghosts. No Canadian is afearded of ghosts. Susannah Moodie
- I have as much authority as the Pope, I just don’t have as many people who believe it. George Carlin
- The universe has grown quite out of my comprehension, and I can find no comfortable deities at my fireside. A.R.M. Lower
- To hang all this desperate sociology on the idea of The Cloud Guy who has The Big Book, who knows if you've been bad or good – and cares about any of it – is the chimpanzee part of the brain working. Frank Zappa
- I believe in heaven and hell - on earth. Rabbi Abraham L. Feinberg
- It is not easy to free myth from reality. Earle Birney
- A good man who goes wrong is just a bad man who has been found out. Robert C. "Bob" Edwards
- We have, in fact, two kinds of morality side by side: one which we preach but do not practice, and another which we practice but seldom preach. Bertrand Russell
- In the solar cycle of the day, the seasonal cycle of the year, and organic cycle of human life, there is a single pattern of significance, out of which myth constructs a central narrative around a figure who is partly the sun, partly a vegetative fertility and partly a god or archetypal human being. Northrop Frye.
- My whole position on morality versus criminality is that the criminal law should not be used to express the morality of one group, religious or pressure groups, or others. The criminal law is not made to punish sin, it is meant to prevent or deter anti-social conduct. Pierre Elliott Trudeau
- Puritans, whether in or out of church make more sinners than they save by a long chalk. They ain't content with real sin. Thomas C. Haliburton
- I cannot believe in a God who wants to be praised all the time. Friedrich Nietzsche
- It is as dangerous to overestimate the goodness of people as to underestimate their stupidity. Irving Layton
- It doesn't seem to me that this fantastically marvellous universe, this tremendous range of time and space and different kinds of animals, and all the planets, and all these atoms with all their motions, and so on,all this complicated thing can merely be a stage so God can watch human being struggle for good and evil -- which is the view religion has. The stage is too big for the drama. Richard Feynman
- Dear, you must know it is nothing to me -
Faith is outmoded
All those illusions I once held so fine
Have long been exploded.
Winnifred A. Hillier
- As a rule a man dies as he had lived, uninfluenced by the thought of a future life. Sir William Osler
- Between ourselves I must confess
Tho I may talk somewhat of God
Yet I have found no God, unless -
God is a state of consciousness.
Tom MacInnes