Freethinker Quotes

The freethinker has the same right to discredit the beliefs of Christians that the Orthodox Christians enjoy in destroying reverence, respect, and confidence in Mohammedanism, Mormonism, Christian Science, or Atheism.

It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.

The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved.

Every true Freethinker accords to each individual the right to mental freedom. Where this freedom leads is no concern of others so long as it encroaches not upon their rights.

What I was utterly convinced of, and still am, is the idea that the only responsibility the free intellectual has is vis-a-vis himself. He is not responsible to either a political party or a ruler.

Freethinkers reject faith as a valid tool of knowledge. Faith is the opposite of reason because reason imposes very strict limits on what can be true, and faith has no limits at all. A Great Escape into faith is no retreat to safety. It is nothing less than surrender.

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.

As men’s prayers are a disease of the will, so are their creeds a disease of the intellect.

Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful.

A believer is a bird in a cage, a freethinker is an eagle parting the clouds with tireless wing.

The idea of a personal God is quite alien to me and seems even naГЇve.

Freethinkers are generally those who never think at all.

How many things we held yesterday as articles of faith which today we tell as fables.

Freethinkers are occasionally thoughtful, though never free.

It is no credit to the orthodox that they do not now believe all the absurdities that were believed 150 years ago. The gradual emasculation of the Christian doctrine has been effected in spite of the most vigorous resistance, and solely as the result of the onslaughts of freethinkers.

Question with boldness even the existence of a god.

By the time I was sixteen I had read many books and I had become a freethinker.

Because the only people for me are the mad ones.

What a state of society is this in which freethinker is a term of abuse, and in which doubt is regarded as sin?

With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.

The authoritarian sets up some book, or man, or tradition to establish the truth. The freethinker sets up reason and private judgment to discover the truth… It takes the highest courage to utter unpopular truths.

This huge and terrible industry [the slave trade] was blessed by all churches and for a long time aroused absolutely no religious protest. . . . In the eighteenth century, a few dissenting Mennonites and Quakers in America began to call for abolition, as did some freethinkers like Thomas Paine.

Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.

Man would indeeded be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.

To destroy guide-boards that point in the wrong direction . . . to drive the fiend of fear from the mind . . . is the task of the Freethinker.

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

Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear.

I would love to believe that when I die I will live again, that some thinking, feeling, remembering part of me will continue.

My ancestors were all Freethinkers, formerly Catholics. It was science and Darwin, in particular, that made them decide, as educated people, which they were, that the priest, nice as he was, didn’t know what he was talking about.

Skeptical scrutiny is the means, in both science and religion, by which deep thoughts can be winnowed from deep nonsense.

The Church says the Earth is flat. But I know that it is round. For I have seen the shadow on the Moon. And I have more faith in a shadow than in the Church.

This Old Testament – containing error, folly, absurdity and immorality – is by English statute law declared to be of divine authority, a blasphemy – if there were anyone to be blasphemed – blacker and more insolent than any word ever written or penned by the most hotheaded Freethinker.

Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God

A man’s ethical behaviour should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.

A lawyer’s brief will be brief, before a freethinker thinks freely.

the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars.

The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike.

Is man one of God’s blunders? Or is God one of man’s blunders?

Gods are fragile things, they may be killed by a whiff of science or a dose of common sense.

My ancestors were Freethinkers – and that’s what I am, except we’re called secular humanists now.

People stopped calling themselves Freethinkers because it was so specifically German and anything German was terribly unpopular because of the two world wars. My family became Unitarians instead – it’s the same sort of thing.

Earnest Freethinkers need not worry themselves so much about the persecutions of the past. Before the Liberal idea is dead or triumphant we shall see wars and persecutions the like of which the world has never seen.

I was a freethinker before I knew how to think.

Faith: not wanting to know what is true.

But here steps in Satan, the eternal rebel, the first freethinker and the emancipator of worlds. He makes man ashamed of his bestial ignorance and obedience; he emancipates him, stamps upon his brow the seal of liberty and humanity, in urging him to disobey and eat of the fruit of knowledge.

I would love to believe that when I die I will live again, that some thinking, feeling, remembering part of me will continue. But as much as I want to believe that, and despite the ancient and worldwide cultural traditions that assert an afterlife, I know of nothing to suggest that it is more than wishful thinking.

For good people to do evil things, it takes religion.