Atheists, Agnostics, Progressive Minds: Busy Bacteria On A Speck Of Dust

Book burnings. Always the forerunners. Heralds of the stake, the ovens, the mass graves.

Geraldine Brooks, recipient of the 2010 Dayton Literary Peace Prize for Lifetime Achievement

The goal of modern propaganda is no longer to transform opinion but to arouse an active and mythical belief.

Jacques Ellul

Know thyself

Inscription at the Delphic Oracle

Why should I allow that same God to tell me how to raise my kids, who had to drown His own?

Robert G. Ingersoll

Leave the matter of religion to the family altar, the church, and the private schools, supported entirely by private contributions. Keep the church and the state forever separated.

Ulysses S. Grant

We godless lack that certainty, and we know the world is a complex place that requires compromise and is not ruled by a moral force — virtue is subject to negotiation, and is found in working together with others to find mutually satisfactory solutions. Good is not absolute, it is an emergent property that arises from successful networks of individuals. It is also something that is measured by evidence: we look at the good that people do, not the promises that they make and never keep, or the lies that dovetail nicely into dogma. Competence is a virtue. Intent is meaningless without action.

PZ Myers

The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. ... We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. ... In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons ... who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind.

Edward Bernays, considered to be the father of PR

Bush, like Moses, is a leadership genius.

Mindless right wing bozos Carolyn B. Thompson & James B. Ware in The Leadership of George W. Bush

Hitler was a non-smoking, non-drinking, heterosexual Christian vegetarian.

John Cannon

A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything.

Frederich Nietzsche

I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.

Stephen Roberts

After coming into contact with a religious man I always feel I must wash my hands.

Frederich Nietzsche

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

Richard Dawkins

Avoid what is evil; do what is good; purify the mind - this is the teaching of the Awakened One.

The Pali Canon - The sacred scriptures of the Theravada Buddhists

Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.

Will Durant

A hillbilly with a permanent hard-on, an upper-class bureaucrat-twit, an actor-imbecile, a born-again Christian peanut farmer, an unelected college football lineman, a paranoid moral dwarf, a vulgar cowboy criminal, and mediocre playboy sex fiend.

Comedian George Carlin's description of the last eight Presidents prior to the little moron's theft of that office.

Preachers are not called upon to be politicians, but soul winners. Nowhere are we commissioned to reform externals.

Rev. Jerry Falwell, speaking in 1965 against the involvement of  preachers in politics, quoted March 10, 2005 in the online magazine Salon. In the 1960s, the Salon writer notes, religious progressives were strongly identified with the labor, civil rights and antiwar movements. Falwell, of course, no longer practices what he once preached.

Remember: it is not given to man to take his goods with him.  No one goes away and then comes back.

The Song of the Harper - Ancient Egyptian quotation found in the tomb of King Inyotef - 2650-2600 BCE

Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.

Seneca

Our ignorance is God; what we know is science.

Robert Ingersoll

A thorough reading and understanding of the Bible is the surest path to atheism.

Donald Morgan

Behold, this dreamer cometh.

Genesis 37:19

Whoso mocketh the poor reproacheth his Maker.

Proverbs 17:5

He who knows others is wise;

He who knows himself is enlightened.

Lao-Tzu - The Way of the Tao

All Cretans are liars.

Epimenides 6th Century BCE

I have an idealistic view of science as a liberalizing and progressive force for humanity.

Paul Nurse

No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.

Aesop circa 550 BCE

The greatest griefs are those we cause ourselves.

Sophocles - Oedipipus Rex

There are in fact two things, science and opinion; the former begets knowledge, the latter ignorance.

Hippocrates - Law, Bk. 1

You have all the characteristics of a popular politician: a horrible voice, bad breeding, and a vulgar manner.

Aristophanes - Knights 424 BCE

This is what extremely grieves us, that a man who never fought should contrive our fees to pilfer, one who for his native land never to this day had oar, or lance, or blister in his hand.

Aristophanes - Wasps, 422 BCE

If anything's progressive, then we make progress.

Michael Giles

In a progressive country change is constant; change is inevitable.

Benjamin Disraeli

Under every stone lurks a politician.

Aristophanes - Thesmophoriazusae, 410 BCE

The life unexamined is not worth living.

Plato – Apology

Astronomy compels the soul to look upwards and leads us from this world to another.

Plato - The Republic, Bk. 1

Oligarchy: A government resting on a valuation of property, in which the rich have power and the poor man is deprived of it.

Plato - The Republic, Bk VIII

The people have always some champion whom they set over them and nurse into greatness ... This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector.

Plato - The Republic, Bk. VIII

Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day; teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime; give a man religion and he will die praying for a fish.

Unknown

Measures must always in a progressive society be held superior to men, who are after all imperfect instruments, working for their fulfillment.

Mohandas Gandhi

Those who seek to satisfy the mind of man by hampering it with ceremonies and music and affecting charity and devotion have lost their original nature.

Chuang-tzu - Joined Toes

Though boys throw stones at frogs in sport, the frogs do not die in sport, but in earnest.

Bion - From PLUTARCH, Water and Land Animals

While there's life, there's hope.

Publius Terentius Afer - Heauton Timoroumenos

He is wise who tries everything before arms.

Publius Terentius Afer - Eunuchus (Prologue)

The people's good is the highest law.

Marcus Tullius Cicero - De Amitica, XI

Such evil deed could religions prompt.

Lucetrius - On the Nature of Things, Invocation

He doubly benefits the needy who gives quickly.

Publilius Syrus - Maxim 6

It is only the ignorant who despise education.

Publilius Syrus - Maxim 571

I have often regretted my speech, never my silence.

Publilius Syrus - Maxim 1070

Let each man have the wit to go his own way.

Sextus Propertius – Elegies

What is hateful to you do not do to your neighbor. That is the whole of the Torah. The rest is commentary.

Hillel - From Talmud (complied 6th century) Shabbath

It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca – Epistles

Naturally, when one makes progressive steps, there may be some who see it as a betrayal of their goals and interests.

Louis Farrakhan

We are mad, not only individually, but nationally. We check manslaughter and isolated murders; but what of war and the much vaunted crime of slaughtering whole peoples?

Lucius Annaeus Seneca – Epistles

Tell, priests, what is gold doing in a holy Place?

Persius – Satires

Everyone ought to worship God according to his own inclinations, and not be constrained by force.

Flavius Josephus – Life

Whoever destroys a single life is as guilty as though he had destroyed the entire world; and whoever rescues a single life earns as much merit as though he had rescued the entire world.

Talmud - 6th century A.D.

There are three classes of men; the retrograde, the stationary and the progressive.

Johann Kaspar Lavater

Anticipate charity by preventing poverty; assist the reduced fellowman, either by a considerable gift, or a sum of money, or teaching him a trade, or by putting him in the way of business, so that he may earn an honest livelihood, and not be forced to the dreadful alternative of holding out his hand for charity. This is the