I think being an atheist is something you are, not something you do.

If religious instruction were not allowed until the child had attained the age of reason, we would be living in a quite different world.

Islamophobia: a word created by fascists, and used by cowards, to manipulate morons.

Religion is poison because it asks us to give up our most precious faculty, which is that of reason, and to believe things without evidence. It then asks us to respect this, which it calls faith.

Never be a spectator of unfairness or stupidity. Seek out argument and disputation for their own sake; the grave will supply plenty of time for silence.

Human beings are pattern-seeking animals who will prefer even a bad theory or a conspiracy theory to no theory at all.

I learned that very often the most intolerant and narrow-minded people are the ones who congratulate themselves on their tolerance and open-mindedness.

High moral character is not a precondition for great moral accomplishments.

What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

Why do humans exist? A major part of the answer: because Pikaia Gracilens survived the Burgess decimation.

The only real radicalism in our time will come as it always has—from people who insist on thinking for themselves and who reject party-mindedness.

Did you ever notice that the first piece of luggage on the carousel never belongs to anyone?

Hope never abandons you you abandon it.

Twenty-five hundred years ago it might have been said that man understood himself as well as any other part of the world. Today he is the thing he understands least.

Nothing is really ours until we share it.

Telephone and telegraph were better means of communication than the holy man's telepathy

The paradoxes of today are the prejudices of tomorrow, since the most benighted and the most deplorable prejudices have had their moment of novelty when fashion lent them its fragile grace.

You can pretend anything and master it.

I'd like to see the first act of Sunday in the Park with George, and the second act of Hamilton. Every day.

Work and family are at the center of our lives, the foundation of our dignity as a free people.