Richard Dawkins

The only way to avoid error is to have no ideas.

The idea of a personal God is a childish one.

It is absolutely safe to say that if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid or insane (or wicked, but I'd rather not consider that).

I'm not trying to convert anyone. I'm just trying to make people think.

The universe is a lot bigger than we think, and a lot stranger.

If you want to be a good scientist, you have to be a good skeptic.

The human brain is a machine for jumping to conclusions.

There is an aesthetic to the universe, and it is a scientific aesthetic.

The idea that there is a God who cares about whether you eat bacon or not is absurd.

The more we learn about the universe, the less we need God.

Science is not just a body of knowledge; it's a way of thinking.

The universe is under no obligation to make sense to you.

I am not an atheist, I am an anti-theist.

The only good argument for God is that it's a nice thought.

The universe is a beautiful, complex, and utterly indifferent place.

If you believe in magic, you're not a scientist.

The world would be a better place if people thought more and believed less.

The total amount of suffering per year in the natural world is beyond all decent contemplation. During the minute that it takes me to compose this sentence, thousands of animals are being eaten alive, many others are running for their lives, whimpering with fear, others are slowly being devoured from within by rasping parasites, thousands of all kinds are dying of starvation, thirst, and disease. It must be so. If there ever is a time of plenty, this very fact will automatically lead to an increase in population until the natural state of starvation and misery is restored.

We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the actual people who do so by an unimaginably huge margin. Certainly among those un-conceived ghosts, there must be poets greater than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively exceeds the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here.

Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?