Dan > Dan's Quotes

“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”
― Carl Sagan

“This is my doctrine: Give every other human being every right you claim for yourself.”
― Robert G. Ingersoll, The Liberty Of Man, Woman And Child

“Religion has actually convinced people that there's an invisible man living in the sky who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever 'til the end of time!

But He loves you. He loves you, and He needs money! He always needs money! He's all-powerful, all-perfect, all-knowing, and all-wise, somehow just can't handle money!”
― George Carlin

“The Bible is not my book nor Christianity my profession. I could never give assent to the long, complicated statements of Christian dogma.”
― Abraham Lincoln, Speeches and Writings 1832–1858

“Wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.

“The choice is not between violence and nonviolence but between nonviolence and nonexistence.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.

“I have decided to stick to love...Hate is too great a burden to bear.”
― Martin Luther King Jr., A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches

“Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.

“No man ever believes that the Bible means what it says: He is always convinced that it says what he means.”
― George Bernard Shaw

“Say what you will about the sweet miracle of unquestioning faith, I consider a capacity for it terrifying and absolutely vile.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Mother Night

“For those who believe in God, most of the big questions are answered. But for those of us who can't readily accept the God formula, the big answers don't remain stone-written. We adjust to new conditions and discoveries. We are pliable. Love need not be a command nor faith a dictum. I am my own god. We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state, and our educational system. We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us.”
― Charles Bukowski

“Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'”
― Isaac Asimov

“... a mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone, if it is to keep its edge.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

“Operationally, God is beginning to resemble not a ruler, but the last fading smile of a cosmic Cheshire Cat.”
― Julian Huxley, Religion Without Revelation

“I cannot call to mind a single instance where I have ever been irreverent, except toward the things which were sacred to other people.”
― Mark Twain

“The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money.

Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.

But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.

This was the Captain Samuel Vimes 'Boots' theory of socioeconomic unfairness.”
― Terry Pratchett, Men at Arms: The Play

“The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool.”
― Richard P. Feynman

“Some gods deserve atheists.”
― Derek Webb