"Zen does not confuse spirituality with thinking about God while one is peeling potatoes. Zen spirituality is just to peel the potatoes."
— Alan Wilson Watts

"The art of living...is neither careless drifting on the one hand nor fearful clinging to the past on the other. It consists in being sensitive to each moment, in regarding it as utterly new and unique, in having the mind open and wholly receptive."
— Alan Wilson Watts

"Things are as they are. Looking out into the universe at night, we make no comparisons between right and wrong stars, nor between well and badly arranged constellations."
— Alan Wilson Watts

"The Bible tells us to be like God, and then on page after page it describes God as a mass murderer. This may be the single most important key to the political behavior of Western Civilization."
— Robert Anton Wilson

"Belief is the death of intelligence."
— Robert Anton Wilson

"...when dogma enters the brain, all intellectual activity ceases. "
— Robert Anton Wilson (Cosmic Trigger I : Final Secret of the Illuminati)

"I don't believe anything, but I have many suspicions."
— Robert Anton Wilson

"The future is up for grabs. It belongs to any and all who will take the responsibility of consciously creating the future they want."
— Robert Anton Wilson

""Is", "is." "is" — the idiocy of the word haunts me. If it were abolished, human thought might begin to make sense. I don't know what anything "is"; I only know how it seems to me at this moment"
— Robert Anton Wilson

"Intelligence is the capacity to receive, decode and transmit information efficiently. Stupidity is blockage of this process at any point. Bigotry, ideologies etc. block the ability to receive; robotic reality-tunnels block the ability to decode or integrate new signals; censorship blocks transmission."
— Robert Anton Wilson

"We're trapped in linguistic constructs... all that is is metaphor."
— Robert Anton Wilson

"Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric."
— Bertrand Russell

"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser men so full of doubts."
— Bertrand Russell

"The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time."
— Bertrand Russell

"Men are born ignorant, not stupid. They are made stupid by education."
— Bertrand Russell

"Most people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so."
— Bertrand Russell

"Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind."
— Bertrand Russell

"Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom."
— Bertrand Russell

"This was what Bertrand Russell called his 'Ten Commandments' as a teacher.

1. Do not feel absolutely certain of anything.
2. Do not think it worthwhile to proceed by concealing evidence, for the evidence is sure to come to light.
3. Never try to discourage thinking for you are sure to succeed.
4. When you meet opposition, even if it should come from your husband, wife or children, endeavor to overcome it by argument and not by authority- for victory dependent upon authority is unreal and illusory.
5. Have no respect for the authority of others, for there are contrary authorities to be found.
6. Do not use power to suppress opinion you think pernicious, for if you do the opinions will suppress you.
7. Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.
8. Find more pleasure in intelligent dissent than in passive agreement, for, if you value intelligence, as you should, the former implies a deeper argument than the latter.
9. Be scrupulously truthful, even if the truth is inconvenient, for it is more inconvenient when you try to conceal it.
10. Do not feel envious of the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise, for only a fool will think that it is happiness."
— Bertrand Russell

"I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong. "
— Bertrand Russell

"The fundamental cause of trouble in the world today is that the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt."
— Bertrand Russell

"And if there were a God, I think it very unlikely that He would have such an uneasy vanity as to be offended by those who doubt His existence"
— Bertrand Russell

"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 (Unpopular Essays)

"An idealist is one who, on noticing that a rose smells better than a cabbage, concludes that it makes a better soup."
— Bertrand Russell

"The infliction of cruelty with a good conscience is a delight to moralists — that is why they invented hell."
— Bertrand Russell

"Science may set limits to knowledge, but should not set limits to imagination."
— Bertrand Russell

"Life is nothing but a competition to be the criminal rather than the victim."
— Bertrand Russell

"I am against religion because it teaches us to be satisfied with not understanding the world."
— Richard Dawkins

"The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully."
— Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion)

"There is something infantile in the presumption that somebody else has a responsibility to give your life meaning and point… The truly adult view, by contrast, is that our life is as meaningful, as full and as wonderful as we choose to make it."
— Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion)

"Let children learn about different faiths, let them notice their incompatibility, and let them draw their own conclusions about the consequences of that incompatibility. As for whether they are ‘valid,’ let them make up their own minds when they are old enough to do so."
— Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion)

"There is no such thing as a Christian child: only a child of Christian parents."
— Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion)

"THE MAJORITY of children born into the world tend to inherit the beliefs of their parents, and that to me is one of the most regrettable facts of them all"
— Richard Dawkins