H.L. Mencken

The most curious social convention of the great age in which we live is the one to the effect that religious opinions should be respected. Regrettably, theocratic Christians and insufferable self-anointed moral elitists have taken advantage of this excessive deference, and have become increasingly preoccupied with imposing their faith-based views on everyone.

John Bice

As a simple test, ask yourself if you agree with the following statements: 1) The earth is less than 10,000 years old, 2) Every word of the Bible is supernaturally inspired, literally true and free from contradiction or error, 3) Communion wafers and wine transubstantiate into the body and blood of Jesus, 4) Evolutionary theory is unsupported by evidence. If you agree with any of those statements, you're likely too blinded by faith to be reachable. You may as well stop reading now and go back to inspecting your cinnamon bun for a likeness of the Virgin Mary.

Mikhail Tal

Before the endgame, the God's have placed the middle game, and I bless those gods.

John Adams

Oh! Lord! Do you think that a Protestant Popedom is annihilated in America? Do you recollect, or have you ever attended to the ecclesiastical Strifes in Maryland, Pensilvania, New York, and every part of New England? What a mercy it is that these People cannot whip and crop, and pillory and roast, as yet in the U.S.! If they could they would.

[John Adams in 1817 in a letter to his old friend and rival Thomas Jefferson]

Commentary by Susan Jacoby: If they could they would. Wherever and whenever they could, they did—and that is why the revolutionary generation bequeathed the unique gift of a secular Constitution to future Americans.

Thorstein Veblen

The superior gratification derived from the use and contemplation of costly and supposedly beautiful products is, commonly, in great measure a gratification of our sense of costliness masquerading under the name of beauty.