“When even the brightest mind in our world has been trained up from childhood in a superstition of any kind, it will never be possible for that mind, in its maturity, to examine sincerely, dispassionately, and conscientiously any evidence or any circumstance which shall seem to cast a doubt upon the validity of that superstition. I doubt if I could do it myself.”

— Mark Twain, book Is Shakespeare Dead?

Is Shakespeare Dead? (1909), §11, as reprinted in Essays and Sketches of Mark Twain (1995), ed. Stuart Miller, ISBN 1566198798

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Mark Twain637

American author and humorist 1835–1910

Leslie Weatherhead (1893–1976) English theologian

Source: The Christian Agnostic (1965), p.225

“I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of the world, and do not find in our particular superstition one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

Quoted in [1906, Six Historic Americans, John E., Remsburg, chapter 2, New York, The Truth Seeker Company, 13504056M, 2219498, 74, http://www.archive.org/details/sixhistoricameri00rems], who claimed it to be from a letter to "Dr. Woods." The full letter is never reproduced, and the Jefferson Foundation lists http://www.monticello.org/site/jefferson/superstition-christianity-quotation the quotation as spurious. <br class="br">Disputed

“I do not rely upon superstition, but upon knowledge; not upon miracles, but upon facts; not upon the dead, but upon the living; and when we become absolutely civilized, we shall look back upon the superstitions of the world, not simply with contempt, but with pity.”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

"To the Indianapolis Clergy." The Iconoclast (Indianapolis, IN) (1883)

“There is hardly any other sphere in which prejudice and superstition of the most horrific kind have been retained so long as in that of women, and just as it must have been an inexpressable relief for humanity when it shook off the burden of religious prejudice and superstition, I think it will be truly glorious when women become real people and have the whole world open before them.”

Karen Blixen (1885–1962) Danish writer

Letter to her sister Elle (1923); later published in Letters from Africa: 1914-1931 (1981) edited by Frans Lasson, translated by Anne Born.

“I have endeavored to dissipate these religious superstitions from the minds of women, and base their faith on science and reason, where I found for myself at last that peace and comfort I could never find in the Bible and the church.”

Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902) Suffragist and Women's Rights activist

1896
September
The Degraded Status of Woman in the Bible
Free Thought Magazine
Chicago
14
540
http://books.google.com/books?id=TfOfAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA540&dq=%22I+have+endeavored+to+dissipate%22