Richard Dawkins Quotes

“A delusion is something that people believe in despite a total lack of evidence.”

“A good scientific theory is one which is falsifiable, which has not been falsified.”

“A good theory explains a lot but postulates little.”

“A native speaker of English who has never read a word of the King James Bible is verging on the barbarian.”

“All animals are minor variations on a very particular theme.”

“As Darwin himself was at pains to point out, natural selection is all about differential survival within species, not between them.”

“Atheists are the new gays; in the closet and pretty much disqualified from public office.”

“Beauty arises out of human inspiration.”

“Blasphemy is a victimless crime.”

“By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.”

“Christopher Hitchens was a writer and an orator with a matchless style, commanding a vocabulary and a range of literary and historical allusion far wider than anybody I know.”

“Cloning may be good and it may be bad. Probably it's a bit of both. The question must not be greeted with reflex hysteria but decided quietly, soberly and on its own merits. We need less emotion and more thought.”

“Coming out as an atheist can cost an academic his or her job in some parts of America, and many choose to keep quiet about their atheism.”

“Compassionate doctors sometimes lie to patients about the severity of their condition, and it is not always wrong to do so.”

“Complex, statistically improbable things are by their nature more difficult to explain than simple, statistically probable things.”

“Darwin gives courage to the rest of science that we shall end up understanding literally everything, springing from almost nothing – a thought extremely hard to comprehend and believe.”

“Design cannot precede evolution and therefore cannot underlie the universe.”

“Disagreements between incompatible beliefs cannot be settled by reasoned argument because reasoned argument is drummed out of those trained in religion from the cradle.”

“Discrimination is not liberal. Arguing against discrimination is not intolerance.”

“Do those people who hold up the Bible as an inspiration to moral rectitude have the slightest notion of what is actually written in it?”

“Do you advocate the Ten Commandments as a guide to the good life? Then I can only presume that you don't know the Ten Commandments.”

“Don't ask God to cure cancer and world poverty. He's too busy finding you a parking space and fixing the weather for your barbecue.”

“Don't kid yourself that you're going to live again after you're dead; you're not. Make the most of the one life you've got. Live it to the full.”

“Einstein was adamant in rejecting all ideas of a personal god.”

“Either blasphemy is a victimless crime or its victim is powerful enough to take care of himself without any help from you.”

“Everybody is an atheist in saying that there is a god – from Ra to Shiva – in which he does not believe. All that the serious and objective atheist does is to take the next step and to say that there is just one more god to disbelieve in.”

“Evolution is fundamentally hostile to religion.”

“Evolution is just a theory? Well, so is gravity and I don't see you jumping out of buildings.”

“False beliefs can be every bit as consoling as true ones, right up until the moment of disillusionment.”

“It is a telling fact that, the world over, the vast majority of children follow the religion of their parents rather than any of the other available religions.”