"I heartily accept the motto, — 'That government is
best which governs least;' & I should like to see it acted up to more
rapidly & systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which I
also believe, — 'That government is best which governs not at all;' & when
men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will
have."
- Henry David Thoreau, On the Duty of Civil Disobedience
"If there is a God, atheism must strike Him as less of
an insult than religion."
- Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
"Now, my good man, this is no time for making
enemies."
- Voltaire, on his deathbed in response to a priest asking that he renounce Satan
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the
death your right to say it."
- Voltaire
"The Christian resolution to find the world ugly and
bad has
made the world ugly and bad."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
"I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them
think."
- Socrates
"What luck for the rulers that men do not think. "
- Adolf Hitler
"When you grow up in America things, like Christianity,
water down your feelings... When you're taught to love everybody, taught to
love your enemies, what value does that put on love?"
- Marilyn Manson
"Anyone in a free society where the laws are unjust has
an obligation to break the law."
- Henry David Thoreau
"Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The
obedient must be slaves."
- Henry David Thoreau (1847)
"Nothing can be more contrary to religion and the clergy than reason and common sense."
- Voltaire, Philosophical Dictionary (1764)
"We must question the story logic of having an
all-knowing, all-powerful God; who creates faulty Humans, and then blames them
for his own mistakes."
- Gene Roddenberry
"If people are good only because they fear punishment
and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed."
- Albert Einstein
"So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the
Gospels in praise of intelligence."
- Bertrand Russell
"...adults are just obsolete children and the hell with
them."
- Dr. Seuss
"I believe in God, only I spell it nature."
- Frank Lloyd Wright.
"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he
is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?"
- Epicurus, Greek philosopher (341-270 B.C.)
"The state calls its own violence law, & that of the individual, crime"
- Max Stirner
"If people behaved like governments, you'd call the cops."
- Kelvin Throop
"Anarchism is not a romantic fable but the hard-headed realization, based on five thousand years of experience, that we cannot entrust the management of our lives to kings, priests, politicians, generals, & county commissioners."
- Ed Abbey
"This is my simple religion. There is no need for
temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is
our temple; the philosophy is kindness."
-Dalai Lama
"Man is free at the moment he wishes to be."
-Voltaire
"Not all who wander are lost."
-J. R. R.
Tolkien
"If a man does not keep pace with his companions,
perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music
which he hears, however measured or far away."
-Henry David
Thoreau, Walden
"I have never found a companion that was so
companionable as solitude. We are for the most part more lonely when we go
abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers. A man thinking or working
is always alone, let him be where he will."
-Henry David
Thoreau, Walden
"The man who goes alone can start today; but he who
travels with another must wait till the other is ready, and it may be along
time before they get off."
-Henry David
Thoreau, Walden, 1854
"I love to be alone. I never found the companion that
was so companionable as solitude."
-Henry David
Thoreau, Walden, 1854
"Perhaps I know why it is man alone who laughs: He
alone suffers so deeply that he had to invent laughter."
-Friedrich
Nietzsche
"It is much more secure to be feared than to be
loved."
-Niccolo
Machiavelli
What has been the fruits of Christianity? ...Superstition, bigotry and persecution.
James Madison, 4th president of the U.S.
The church says that the Earth is flat, but I have seen the shadow on the moon and I have more faith in the shadow than in the church.
Ferdinand Magellan
The truths of religion are never so well understood as by those who have lost the power of resoning.
Voltaire
There is no god greater than truth.
Mahatma Gandhi
I do not feel obliged to believe the the same God who endowed us with Sense, Reason, and Intellect had also intended us to forego their use.
Galileo Galilei
Men never do evil so completely or cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.
Blaise Pascal
What does it say about God if he goes to the trouble of creating an existence only to shower it with misery unless they worship him?
You can't convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it's based on a deep-seated need to believe.
Carl Sagan
Dance,when you're broken open.
Dance, if you've torn the bandage off.
Dance, in the middle of the fighting.
Dance in your blood.
Dance, when you are perfectly free.
RUMI
"If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite. For man has closed himself up, tilL he sees all things through narrow chinks of his cavern."
WILIAM BLAKE
"The Soul that moves in the world of the senses and yet keeps the senses in harmony finds rest in quietness."
BHAGAVADA GITA
"The highest good is like water; Water is good at benefiting the myriad creatures but also struggles to occupy the place loathed by the masses."
the TAO
"He who hears the music of the Soul plays his part well in life."
SWAMI SIVANANDA
"The knower of the mystery of sound knows the mystery of the whole universe"
HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN