“By night an atheist half believes a God.”

—  Edward Young , Night-Thoughts

Source: Night-Thoughts (1742–1745), Night V, Line 177.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "By night an atheist half believes a God." by Edward Young?
Edward Young photo
Edward Young 110
English poet 1683–1765

Related quotes

Rita Levi-Montalcini photo

“I'm an atheist: I don't know what it means to believe in God.”

Rita Levi-Montalcini (1909–2012) Italian neurologist

Source: Interview with Piergiorgio Odifreddi in Incontri con menti straordinarie (TEA, Milano, 2007), ISBN 978-88-502-1523-2.

Denis Diderot photo

“I believe in God, although I live very happily with atheists… It is very important not to mistake hemlock for parsley; but not at all so to believe or not in God.”

Denis Diderot (1713–1784) French Enlightenment philosopher and encyclopædist

As quoted in Against the Faith (1985) by Jim Herrick, p. 75
Variant translation: It is very important not to mistake hemlock for parsley, but to believe or not believe in God is not important at all.

Richard Dawkins photo

“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.”

Richard Dawkins (1941) English ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author
Heywood Broun photo

“There is no proselyter half so energetic as the hard-shelled atheist.”

Heywood Broun (1888–1939) American sportswriter

"A New Preface to an Old Story", Broun's Nutmeg, August 19, 1939

Richard Dawkins photo

“We are all atheists about most of the gods that societies have ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.”

Richard Dawkins book The God Delusion

The Root of All Evil? (January 2006)
Source: Part 1: "The God Delusion"

Isaac Newton photo

“He who thinks half-heartedly will not believe in God; but he who really thinks has to believe in God.”

Isaac Newton (1643–1727) British physicist and mathematician and founder of modern classical physics
Martin Buber photo

“The atheist staring from his attic window is often nearer to God than the believer caught up in his own false image of God.”

Martin Buber (1878–1965) German Jewish Existentialist philosopher and theologian
Pope Benedict XVI photo

“[The atheist believes] a world marked by so much injustice, innocent suffering, and cynicism of power cannot be the work of a good God.”

Pope Benedict XVI (1927) 265th Pope of the Catholic Church

Encyclical Letter Spe Salvi of the Supreme Pontiff Benedict XVI to the Bishops Priests and Deacons Men and Women Religious and All the Lay Faithful On Christian Hope, 30 November 2007
2007

Oprah Winfrey photo

“Well, I don't call you an atheist then. I think if you believe in the awe and the wonder and the mystery, then that is what God is. That is what God is, not the bearded guy in the sky.”

Oprah Winfrey (1954) American businesswoman, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist

2013-10-13
Super Soul Sunday
TV
OWN
http://www.oprah.com/own-super-soul-sunday/Soul-to-Soul-with-Diana-Nyad-Im-an-Atheist-Whos-In-Awe-Video, quoted in * 2013-10-15
Why Oprah's Anti-Atheist Bias Hurts So Much
David Niose
Our Humanity, Naturally
Psychology Today
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/our-humanity-naturally/201310/why-oprahs-anti-atheist-bias-hurts-so-much
in response to endurance swimmer Diana Nyad saying she can "weep with the beauty of this universe and be moved by all of humanity".

Isaac Asimov photo

“If I were not an atheist, I would believe in a God who would choose to save people on the basis of the totality of their lives and not the pattern of their words.”

Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …

I. Asimov: A Memoir (1994)
Context: If I were not an atheist, I would believe in a God who would choose to save people on the basis of the totality of their lives and not the pattern of their words. I think he would prefer an honest and righteous atheist to a TV preacher whose every word is God, God, God, and whose every deed is foul, foul, foul.
I would also want a God who would not allow a Hell. Infinite torture can only be a punishment for infinite evil, and I don't believe that infinite evil can be said to exist even in the case of Hitler. Besides, if most human governments are civilized enough to try to eliminate torture and outlaw cruel and unusual punishments, can we expect anything less of an all-merciful God?
I feel that if there were an afterlife, punishment for evil would be reasonable and of a fixed term. And I feel that the longest and worst punishment should be reserved for those who slandered God by inventing Hell.

Related topics