A

"Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what's right."  Isaac Asimov

"Evil is unspectacular and always human, and shares our bed and eats at our own table. "  W.H. Auden

B

“We find the most terrible form of atheism, not in the militant and passionate struggle against the idea of God himself, but in the practical atheism of everyday living, in indifference and torpor. We often encounter these forms of atheism among those who are formally Christians.”  Nicolai Berdyaev

"Don't say you don't have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein."  H. Jackson Brown

"The masses bother me not because they are basically stupid, but because they push their stupidity into my life."  Charles Bukowski

"If we have been pleased with life, we should not be displeased with death, since it comes from the hand of the same master. "  Michelangelo Buonarroti, 1474 - 1564  

"It is much more comfortable to be mad and know it, than to be sane and have one's doubts. "  G. B. Burgin

"An apology for the Devil: It must be remembered that we have only heard one side of the case. God has written all the books.” Samuel Butler "Higgledy-Piggledy"

C

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened."  Winston Churchill

" America is the only nation in history which miraculously has gone directly from barbarism to degeneration without the usual interval of civilisation."  Georges Clemenceau  

"The male is a domestic animal which, if treated with firmness and kindness, can be trained to do most things."  Jilly Cooper

D

"I am an agnostic; I do not pretend to know what many ignorant men are sure of."  Clarence Darrow

"Dream as if you'll live forever and live as if you'll die tomorrow."  James Dean

"Memorize quotes. They're useful in ending and winning arguments. Then again, so are semi- automatic weapons. "  Tony Detharidge

E

"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source ofall true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.."  Albert Einstein

F

"The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise. "  F. Scott Fitzgerald

"A person is never happy except at the price of some ignorace" Anatole France

"I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge. I believe that dreams are more powerful than facts. That hope always triumphs over experience. That laughter is the only cure for grief. And I believe that love is stronger than death."  Robert Fulghum

G

"Why is it that, as a culture, we are more comfortable seeing two men holding guns than holding hands?" Ernest Gaines

“Anarchism is the only philosophy which brings to man the consciousness of himself; whichmaintains that God, the State, and society are non-existent, that their promises are null and void, since they can be fulfilled only through man's subordination. Anarchism is therefore the teacher of the unity of life; not merely in nature, but in man.”  Emma Goldman

“It is safe to say that no other superstition is so detrimental to growth, so enervating and paralyzing to the minds and hearts of the people, as the superstition of Morality.”  Emma Goldman

“Love, the strongest and deepest element in all life, the harbinger of hope, of joy, of ecstasy; love, the defier of all laws, of all conventions; love, the freest, the most powerful moulder of human destiny; how can such an all-compelling force be synonymous with that poor little State and Church-begotten weed, marriage?”  Emma Goldman

"It gets annoying when all I hear some people saying is 'What Would Jesus Do?' and I'm like: what, for a Klondike bar?"  Arjuna Greist

"Love is a perky elf dancing a merry little jig and then suddenly he turns on you with a miniature machine gun."  Matt Groening, Life in Hell

H

"For a woman there is nothing more erotic than being understood."  Molly Haskell

"In a very real sense, people who have read good literature have lived more than people who cannot or will not read.... It is not true that we have only one life to live; if we can read, we can live as many more lives and as many kinds of lives as we wish."  S.I. Hayakawa

"From your parents you learn love and laughter and how to put one foot before the other. But when books are opened you discover that you have wings."  Helen Hayes  

"Women and cats will do as they please. Men and dogs had better get used to it. "  Robert Heinlein, Time Enough For Love

J

"When young lips have drunk deep of the bitter waters of hate, suspicion, and despair, all the love in the world will not wholly take away that knowledge."  Dorothy Jongward

K

"Fiction is the truth inside the lie. "  Stephen King

L

"The Bible contains six admonishments to homosexuals and 362 admonishments to heterosexuals. That doesn't mean that God doesn't love heterosexuals. It's just that they need more supervision." Lynn Lavner

"Don't confuse the end of your world with the beginning of mine."  John Leguizamo

"An individual Christian may see fit to give up all sorts of things for special reasons -- marriage, or meat, or beer, or cinema; but the moment he starts saying the things are bad in themselves, or looking down his nose at other people who do use them, he has taken the wrong turning."   C S Lewis, Mere Christianity

"With most men, unbelief in one thing springs from blind belief in another.quot;   Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

M

"It always seemed to me a bit pointless to disapprove of homosexuality. It's like disapproving of rain." Francis Maude

"Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven." John Milton " Paradise Lost"

"The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a Heav'n of Hell, a Hell of Heav'n. "  John Milton

N

"Knowing what goes on behind my placid exterior, I have a strong suspicion of what goes on behind yours."  Richard Needham

"The earth has a skin and that skin has diseases; one of its diseases is called man." Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

"Which is it - is man one of God's blunders or is God one of man's blunders?"  Nietzsche

"One should not go into churches if one wants to breathe pure air."  Nietzsche

"A casual stroll through a lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything."  Nietzsche

"One must have chaos in oneself in order to give birth to a dancing star."  Nietzsche

"If you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."  Nietzsche

"Morality is herd instinct in the individual."  Nietzsche

O

"Belief is for those that do not know; faith is for those that refuse to know" Optik

"No one is fond of taking responsibility for his actions, but consider how much you'd have to hate free will to come up with a political platform that advocates killing unborn babies but not convicted murderers."  P.J. O'Rourke

"If God had a face…would you want to see, if seeing meant that you would have to believe..?" Joan Osborne, "What if God Was One of Us"

P

"Those who can laugh without cause have either found the true meaning of happiness or have gone stark raving mad."  Norm Papernick

"All that we see or seem Is but a dream within a dream."  edgar allan poe

"Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night" Edgar Allen Poe

"The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it."  Terry Pratchett, Diggers

"His philosophy was a mixture of three famous schools -- the Cynics, the Stoics and the Epicureans -- and summed up all three of them in his famous phrase, `You can't trust any bugger further than you can throw him, and there's nothing you can do about it, so let's have a drink.' "  Terry Pratchett

“The illusion which exalts us is dearer to us than ten-thousand truths.” Aleksandr Pushkin

R

"So we reach into the raging chaos, and we pluck some small glittering thing, and we cling to it, and we tell ourselves it has meaning, and that the world is good, and we are not evil, and we will all go home in the end."  Anne Rice

"...before Christianity, the entire ancient world lived in a kind of religious harmony. No one persecuted anyone else for religion."
"[Christianity] was from its very beginnings... a religion of great quarrels and wars, and it wooed the power of temporal authorities, and made them part of itself in the hope of resolving through sheer force its many arguments."
"No matter how long we exist, we have our memories - points in time which time itself cannot erase. Suffering may distort my backward glances, but even to suffering, some memories will yield nothing of their beauty or their splendor. Rather they remain as hard as gems." Anne Rice, Blood and Gold

"All big things in this world are done by people who are naive and have an idea that is obviously impossible."  Dr. Frank Richards

"Kill one man and you are a murderer. Kill millions and you are a conqueror. Kill all and you are a GOD." Jean Rostand

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

S

"The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact than a drunken man is happier than a sober one."  George Bernard Shaw

"I would rather have a mind opened by wonder than one closed by belief."  Gerry Spence

"All religions are founded on the fear of the many and the cleverness of the few."  Stendhal (Marie Henri Beyle)

"The idea of God is slightly more plausible than the alternative proposition that, given enough time, some green slime could write Shakespeare's sonnets."  Tom Stoppard  

"A great book should leave you with many experiences, and slightly exhausted. You should live several lives while reading it."  William Styron

"We have enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another. "  Jonathan Swift

T

"Reality is a crutch for people who can't cope with drugs."  Lily Tomlin

"All religions issue Bibles against Satan, and say the most injurious things against him, but we never hear his side."  Mark Twain

"When we remember that we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained."  Mark Twain

"Of all God's creatures, there is only one that cannot be made the slave of the lash. That one is the cat. If man could be crossed with a cat it would improve man, but it would deteriorate the cat. "  Mark Twain

"If homosexuality is a disease, let's all call in queer to work: "Hello. Can't work today, still queer." " Robin Tyler

V

'You could move.' ~ Abigail Van Buren, "Dear Abby," in response to a reader who complained that a gay couple was moving in across the street and wanted to know what he could do to improve the quality of the neighborhood

"No culture has a monopoly on beauty or value... Just as no religion has a monopoly on truth." Voltaire

W

"If all mankind were to disappear, the world would regenerate back to the rich stateof equilibrium that existed ten thousand years ago. If insects were to vanish, the environment would collapse into chaos." Edward O. Wilson

"A cult is a religion with no political power." Tom Wolfe

Z

"I like libraries. It makes me feel comfortable and secure to have walls of words, beautiful and wise, all around me. I always feel better when I can see that there is something to hold back the shadows. "  Roger Zelazny

OTHER

"depression is merely anger without enthusiasm"   unknown

"Wouldn't it be much worse if life were fair, and all the terrible things that happen tous come because we actually deserve them? So now I take great comfort in thegeneral hostility and unfairness of the universe."  Marcus Cole, Babylon 5

"The quiet ones change the universe. The loud ones just take the credit."  Londo Mollari, Babylon 5

"I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient inliving, it's a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope and that enables you to laugh at life's realities."  Dr. Seuss

"There comes a time when you look into the mirror and realize that what you see is all that you will ever be. Then you accept it, or you kill yourself. Or, you stop looking into mirrors."  Londo Mollari, Babylon 5

"It's not denial. I'm just selective about the reality I accept."  Calvin (& Hobbes)

"Choose your future. Choose life. But why would I want to do a thing like that? I chose not to choose life. I chose something else. And the reasons? There are no reasons. Who needs reasons when you've got heroin? People think it's all about misery and desperation and death and all that shit, which is not to be ignored, but what they forget is the pleasure of it. Otherwise, we wouldn't do it. After all, we're not fucking stupid. At least, we're not that fucking stupid. "  Renton , Trainspotting  

"War. Rape. Murder. Poverty. Equal rights for gays. Guess which one the Southern Baptist Convention is protesting?" The Value of Families

Comes The Dawn - unknown author

After a while you learn 
the subtle difference between 
holding a hand and chaining a soul 
and you learn that love doesn't mean possession 
and company doesn't mean security. 
And you begin to learn that kisses aren't contracts 
and presents aren't promises, 
and you begin to accept your defeats 
with your head up and your eyes open 
with the grace of a woman, not the grief of a child. 
And you learn to build your roads today, 
because tomorrow's ground is too uncertain for plans 
and futures have a way of falling down in mid-flight. 
After awhile you learn that even sunshine burns 
if you get too much, so you plant your own garden 
and decorate your own soul 
instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers. 
And you learn that you really can endure 
that you really are strong 
and you really do have worth 
and you learn 
and you learn... 
with every good-bye you learn