The cause of my life has been to oppose superstition. It’s a battle you can’t hope to win – it’s a battle that’s going to go on forever. It’s part of the human condition.

I grow daily to honour facts more and more, and theory less and less. A fact, it seems to me, is a great thing; a sentence printed, if not by God, then at least by the Devil.

Existence precedes and rules essence.

Being no bigot myself to any mode of worship, I am disposed to endulge the professors of Christianity in the church, that road to heaven which to them shall seem the most direct plainest easiest and least liable to exception.

It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.

Who is rich? He that is content. Who is that? Nobody.

I believe there are no questions that science can’t answer about a physical universe.

Every man is his own hell.

I want to do a certain thing in the world, and I am going to do it with unwavering concentration. I am concerning myself with only one essential thing: to set man free. I desire to free him from all cages, from all fears, and not to found religions, new sects, nor to establish new theories and new philosophies.

No one’s policing their own minds more than an author. You spend a lot of time in your own head analysing what you think about things, and a philosophy comes.

Nothing is more dangerous to one’s own faith than the work of an apologist. No doctrine of that faith seems to me so spectral, so unreal as one that I have just successfully defended in a public debate.

Those convinced against their will are of the same opinion still.

There is nothing permanent except change.

Every man casts a shadow; not his body only, but his imperfectly mingled spirit. This is his grief. Let him turn which way he will, it falls opposite to the sun; short at noon, long at eve. Did you never see it?

The noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding.

Sorry, I’m still a dialectical materialist.

Life is warfare.

I believe God gives you the grace to do what you need to do.

Pessimism is a luxury that a Jew can never allow himself.

Everything passes. Nobody gets anything for keeps. And that’s how we’ve got to live.

To you I’m an atheist; to God, I’m the Loyal Opposition.

The greatness of man is great in that he knows himself to be wretched. A tree does not know itself to be wretched.

Since God created the world, He also created reality.

Religions get lost as people do.

You should not believe your conscience and your feelings more than the word which the Lord who receives sinners preaches to you.

How happy had it been for me had I been slain in the battle. It had been far more noble to have died the victim of the enemy than fall a sacrifice to the rage of my friends.

If being an egomaniac means I believe in what I do and in my art or music, then in that respect you can call me that… I believe in what I do, and I’ll say it.

There is no such thing as Something for nothing.

One of my favorite philosophical tenets is that people will agree with you only if they already agree with you. You do not change people’s minds.

The art of being a slave is to rule one’s master.

Because I believe in God and have faith in God, it doesn’t mean I am immortal. It doesn’t mean I am immune, as has been claimed. I am as scared as anyone of getting hurt, especially driving a Formula One car.

Faith indeed tells what the senses do not tell, but not the contrary of what they see. It is above them and not contrary to them.

Men often take their imagination for their heart; and they believe they are converted as soon as they think of being converted.

I don’t believe in nepotism. I don’t much like the idea of parents who interfere.

Nothing exists from whose nature some effect does not follow.

There are men so philosophical that they can see humor in their own toothaches. But there has never lived a man so philosophical that he could see the toothache in his own humor.

Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art… It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that give value to survival.

Nothing is divine but what is agreeable to reason.

Life without liberty is like a body without spirit.

God is a thought who makes crooked all that is straight.

I have already demonstrated, by crucial tests, the practicability of signaling by my system from one to any other point of the globe, no matter how remote, and I shall soon convert the disbelievers.

Small amounts of philosophy lead to atheism, but larger amounts bring us back to God.

It is folly for a man to pray to the gods for that which he has the power to obtain by himself.

When you become a Christian, something truly amazing happens: God comes to live inside your heart. You become the home of God.

I believe that God has planted in every heart the desire to live in freedom.

Freedom does not die from frontal attack. It dies because men in power no longer believe in a system based upon liberty.

Each one of them is Jesus in disguise.

Rules are not necessarily sacred, principles are.

Thought must be divided against itself before it can come to any knowledge of itself.

Nothing in life is promised except death.

The future is something which everyone reaches at the rate of 60 minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is.

It is always consoling to think of suicide: in that way one gets through many a bad night.

Man is an exception, whatever else he is. If he is not the image of God, then he is a disease of the dust. If it is not true that a divine being fell, then we can only say that one of the animals went entirely off its head.

If you are part of a religion that very strongly insists that you believe then to decide not to do that is quite a big hurdle to jump over. You never forget the thought process you went through. It becomes part of your whole intellectual picture.

Man is made by his belief. As he believes, so he is.

To believe in God is impossible not to believe in Him is absurd.

The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better. I, therefore, intend to oppose the effort to increase America’s debt.

Do not impose on others what you yourself do not desire.

I would rather live my life as if there is a God and die to find out there isn’t, than live as if there isn’t and to die to find out that there is.

The old believe everything, the middle-aged suspect everything, the young know everything.

Open-minded people tend to be interested in Buddhism because Buddha urged people to investigate things – he didn’t just command them to believe.