Quotes about atheist

"Sir Anthony Hopkins: I couldn't be an atheist". https://www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2011/02/11/sir-anthony-hopkins-i-couldnt-be-an-atheist/ (February 11, 2011)

Stardust Memories (1980).

p. 44 http://books.google.com/books?id=W6bPGIL-_-8C&pg=PA44&dq=%22On+second+thought,+maybe+the+atheist%22: Sometimes misattributed to Francis Thompson, whose quote "An atheist is a man who believes himself an accident" Peter was commenting on.
Peter's Quotations: Ideas for Our Time (1977)

Mon Dernier soupir (My Last Sigh, 1983)

Source: Down and out in Paris and London (1933), Ch. 30
Source: Down and Out in Paris and London
Context: He was an embittered atheist (the sort of atheist who does not so much disbelieve in God as personally dislike Him), and took a sort of pleasure in thinking that human affairs would never improve. Sometimes, he said, when sleeping on the Embankment, it had consoled him to look up at Mars or Jupiter and think that there were probably Embankment sleepers there. He had a curious theory about this. Life on earth, he said, is harsh because the planet is poor in the necessities of existence. Mars, with its cold climate and scanty water, must be far poorer, and life correspondingly harsher. Whereas on earth you are merely imprisoned for stealing sixpence, on Mars you are probably boiled alive. This thought cheered Bozo, I do not know why. He was a very exceptional man.

Las Vegas CityLife, August 9, 2007 http://www.lvcitylife.com/articles/2007/08/10/ae/stage/iq_15893857.txt
Interviews, Print Interviews

Source: 1790s, The Age of Reason, Part II (1795), Chapter III: Conclusion.

§ 228
The Reasonableness of Christianity (1695)

Quoted in " Goodbye Margherita Hack, “The Lady of the Stars.”", iitaly.org (1 July 2013) http://www.iitaly.org/magazine/focus/facts-stories/article/goodbye-margherita-hack-lady-stars?mode=colorbox.

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

The Crisis No. V
Source: 1770s, The American Crisis (1776–1783)

Jace and Simon, pg. 171
The Mortal Instruments, City of Ashes (2008)

Source: The Color of Magic

Source: A Farewell to Arms (1929), Ch. 2

The Words (1964), speaking of his grandmother.

Source: Small Gods

Recollection by Gilbert J. Greene, quoted in The Speaking Oak (1902) by Ferdinand C. Iglehart and Latest Light on Abraham Lincoln (1917) by Ervin S. Chapman
Posthumous attributions

"Bishop Blougram’s Apology", line 395; cited by Graham Greene as the epigraph he would choose for his novels.
Men and Women (1855)

Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Source: Mrs. Dalloway

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

Interview with Bill Maher (2013) http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=d2b_1382908273

Source: The Autobiography of Malcolm X (1965), p. 375

Hocus Pocus (1990)

ibid., chap. 30

The Mike Wallace Interview (1958)

Letter to Satsvarupa, San Francisco, 9 April, 1968 PrabhupadaBooks.com http://prabhupadabooks.com/letters/san_francisco/april/09/1968/satsvarupa?d=1
Quotes from other Sources, Quotes from other Sources: Racism and Homophobia

Source: The Autobiography, P. 31

MURRAY v. CURLETT, Petition for Relief, 1959

A Man Without a Country (2005)

Letter to George William Russell (1 July 1921)

Drinking from the firehose with Howard Bloom https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhlL7IjaZNI?t=29m55s
Other

Science in the Dock (2011), 2, Chomsky.info, March 1, 2006, August 16, 2011 http://www.chomsky.info/debates/20060301.htm,
Quotes 2010s, 2011

Revolution (2014)

Source: The Ballot or the Bullet (1964), Speech in Cleveland, Ohio (April 3, 1964)

The critical review, or annals of literature, Volume XXVI http://books.google.es/books?id=aItKAAAAcAAJ&printsec=frontcover&hl=es#v=onepage&q&f=false, by A Society of Gentlemen (1768) p. 450

http://movies.nytimes.com/2010/02/11/movies/11radical.html
Other sourced statements

Letter to Robert E. Howard (16 August 1932), in Selected Letters 1932-1934 edited by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei, p. 57
Non-Fiction, Letters

"The Brazil of North America" https://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/the-brazil-of-north-america/ (July 18, 2014), Chronicles
2010s

What is an Agnostic? (1953)
1950s

Religion und Naturwissenschaft (1958)

"Proof of God"
1940s, Am I An Atheist Or An Agnostic? http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/russell8.htm (1947)

Back to Godhead article by Bhaktivedanta Swami, April 20, 1956. Vanipedia http://vanisource.org/wiki/1956_Back_to_Godhead_vol_3_part_04_-_Godless_Creation
Quotes from other Sources, Quotes from other Sources: False Prophecies

Trotsky's Testament (1940)
Context: For forty-three years of my conscious life I have remained a revolutionist; for forty-two of them I have fought under the banner of Marxism. If I had to begin all over again I would of course try to avoid this or that mistake, but the main course of my life would remain unchanged. I shall die a proletarian revolutionist, a Marxist, a dialectical materialist, and, consequently, an irreconcilable atheist. My faith in the communist future of mankind is not less ardent, indeed it is firmer today, than it was in the days of my youth.

In his letter to Theo, from Etten, c. 21 December 1881, Letter #164 http://webexhibits.org/vangogh/letter/10/164.htm, as translated by Mrs. Johanna van Gogh-Bonger, as published in The Complete Letters of Vincent van Gogh (1991) edited by Robert Harrison] <!-- also quoted in Dear Theo: The Autobiography of Vincent Van Gogh (1995) Edited by Irving Stone -->
1880s, 1881
Context: That God of the clergymen, He is for me as dead as a doornail. But am I an atheist for all that? The clergymen consider me as such — be it so; but I love, and how could I feel love if I did not live, and if others did not live, and then, if we live, there is something mysterious in that. Now call that God, or human nature or whatever you like, but there is something which I cannot define systematically, though it is very much alive and very real, and see, that is God, or as good as God. To believe in God for me is to feel that there is a God, not a dead one, or a stuffed one, but a living one, who with irresistible force urges us toward aimer encore; that is my opinion.

Statement during National Prayer Breakfast (27 September 2010), "Obama 'Christian By Choice': President Responds To Questioner" by Charles Babington and Darlene Superville, Associated Press (28 September 2010) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/28/obama-christian-by-choice_n_742124.html?view=print - Video : President Obama: "I am a Christian By Choice" at ABC News (29 September 2010) http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2010/09/president-obama-i-am-a-christian-by-choicethe-precepts-of-jesus-spoke-to-me.html
2010
Context: I'm a Christian by choice. My family didn't — frankly, they weren't folks who went to church every week. And my mother was one of the most spiritual people I knew, but she didn't raise me in the church. So I came to my Christian faith later in life, and it was because the precepts of Jesus Christ spoke to me in terms of the kind of life that I would want to lead — being my brothers' and sisters' keeper, treating others as they would treat me. I think also understanding that Jesus Christ dying for my sins spoke to the humility we all have to have as human beings, that we're sinful and we're flawed and we make mistakes, and that we achieve salvation through the grace of God. But what we can do, as flawed as we are, is still see God in other people and do our best to help them find their own grace. That's what I strive to do. That's what I pray to do every day. I think my public service is part of that effort to express my Christian faith. … One thing I want to emphasize, having spoken about something that obviously relates to me very personally, as president of the United States I'm also somebody who deeply believes that part of the bedrock strength of this country is that it embraces people of many faiths and no faith… that this is a country that is still predominantly Christian, but we have Jews, Muslims, Hindus, atheists, agnostics, Buddhists, and that their own path to grace is one that we have to revere and respect as much as our own.
That's part of what makes this country what it is.

1790s, Discourse to the Theophilanthropists (1798)
Context: The atheist who affects to reason, and the fanatic who rejects reason, plunge themselves alike into inextricable difficulties. The one perverts the sublime and enlightening study of natural philosophy into a deformity of absurdities by not reasoning to the end. The other loses himself in the obscurity of metaphysical theories, and dishonours the Creator, by treating the study of his works with contempt. The one is a half-rational of whom there is some hope, the other a visionary to whom we must be charitable.

Homily at the morning Mass at the Casa Santa Marta (23 February 2017), as quoted in "Pope: Don't put off conversion, give up a double life" at Vatican Radio (23 February 2017) http://en.radiovaticana.va/news/2017/02/23/pope_dont_put_off_conversion,_give_up_a_double_life/1294470; also quoted in "Did Pope Francis Say It Was Better to Be an Atheist Than a Bad Catholic? at snopes.com (28 February) http://www.snopes.com/pope-francis-bad-catholics/
2010s, 2017
Context: What is scandal? Scandal is saying one thing and doing another; it is a double life, a double life. A totally double life: "I am very Catholic, I always go to Mass, I belong to this association and that one; but my life is not Christian, I don’t pay my workers a just wage, I exploit people, I am dirty in my business, I launder money …" A double life. And so many Christians are like this, and these people scandalize others. How many times have we heard — all of us, around the neighborhood and elsewhere — "but to be a Catholic like that, it’s better to be an atheist." It is that, scandal. You destroy. You beat down. And this happens every day, it’s enough to see the news on TV, or to read the papers. In the papers there are so many scandals, and there is also the great publicity of the scandals. And with the scandals there is destruction.

Source: One Minute Nonsense (1992), p. 21
Context: "Tell me," said the atheist, "Is there a God — really?"
Said the master, "If you want me to be perfectly honest with you, I will not answer."
Later the disciples demanded to know why he had not answered.
"Because the question is unanswerable," said the Master.
"So you are an atheist?"
"Certainly not. The atheist makes the mistake of denying that of which nothing may be said... and the theist makes the mistake of affirming it.

Wording in Ideas and Opinions: Common to all these types is the anthropomorphic character of their conception of God. In general, only individuals of exceptional endowments, and exceptionally high-minded communities, rise to any considerable extent above this level. But there is a third stage of religious experience which belongs to all of them, even though it is rarely found in a pure form: I shall call it cosmic religious feeling. It is very difficult to elucidate this feeling to anyone who is entirely without it, especially as there is no anthropomorphic conception of God corresponding to it. The individual feels the futility of human desires and aims and the sublimity and marvelous order which reveal themselves both in nature and in the world of thought. Individual existence impresses him as a sort of prison and he wants to experience the universe as a single significant whole. The beginnings of cosmic religious feeling already appear at an early stage of development, e.g., in many of the Psalms of David and in some of the Prophets. Buddhism, as we have learned especially from the wonderful writings of Schopenhauer, contains a much stronger element of this. The religious geniuses of all ages have been distinguished by this kind of religious feeling, which knows no dogma and no God conceived in man's image; so that there can be no church whose central teachings are based on it. Hence it is precisely among the heretics of every age that we find men who were filled with this highest kind of religious feeling and were in many cases regarded by their contemporaries as atheists, sometimes also as saints. Looked at in this light, men like Democritus, Francis of Assisi, and Spinoza are closely akin to one another.
1930s, Religion and Science (1930)
Context: Common to all these types is the anthropomorphic character of the idea of God. Only exceptionally gifted individuals or especially noble communities rise essentially above this level; in these there is found a third level of religious experience, even if it is seldom found in a pure form. I will call it the cosmic religious sense. This is hard to make clear to those who do not experience it, since it does not involve an anthropomorphic idea of God; the individual feels the vanity of human desires and aims, and the nobility and marvelous order which are revealed in nature and in the world of thought. He feels the individual destiny as an imprisonment and seeks to experience the totality of existence as a unity full of significance. Indications of this cosmic religious sense can be found even on earlier levels of development—for example, in the Psalms of David and in the Prophets. The cosmic element is much stronger in Buddhism, as, in particular, Schopenhauer's magnificent essays have shown us. The religious geniuses of all times have been distinguished by this cosmic religious sense, which recognizes neither dogmas nor God made in man's image. Consequently there cannot be a church whose chief doctrines are based on the cosmic religious experience. It comes about, therefore, that we find precisely among the heretics of all ages men who were inspired by this highest religious experience; often they appeared to their contemporaries as atheists, but sometimes also as saints. Viewed from this angle, men like Democritus, Francis of Assisi, and Spinoza are near to one another.

Throughout my life I have acquired some wisdom but always through rationality, thought, and experience. I am a rational person and I work only through my own experience. My lifestyle is that of a secular person, and I have learned about human beings that way
Paris Review interview (2007)

Letter to Satsvarupa, San Francisco, (9 April 1968)

I wouldn't judge a man by the presuppositions of his life, but only by the fruits of his life. And the fruits — the relevant fruits — are, I'd say, a sense of charity, a sense of proportion, a sense of justice. And whether the man is an atheist or a Christian, I would judge him by his fruits, and I have therefore many agnostic friends.
The Mike Wallace Interview (1958)

Yet Another Effort, Frenchmen, If You Would Become Republicans
Philosophy in the Bedroom (1795)

Source: The God Delusion

A play on words commonly used referring to vagrants or paupers as having "no visible means of support" financially, speaking to the Law Society of Upper Canada, (21 February 1936); published in Canadian Occasions (1940), p. 201. Buchan's source for this definition remains unknown. The witticism was repeated by Harry Emerson Fosdick in his On Being a Real Person (1943), ch. 1, with due acknowledgement to Buchan, and was again used by Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen in Look magazine (December 14, 1955). The credit for this line is therefore often wrongly given to Fosdick or to Sheen. Credit has also been given to the conductor Walter Damrosch (1862-1950).
Canadian Occasions (1940)

Letter to John Quincy Adams (16 June 1816). Adams Papers (microfilm), reel 432, Library of Congress. James H. Hutson (ed.), The Founders on Religion: A Book of Quotations. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007, p. 20
1810s
Source: The Portable John Adams

Source: Death Masks

Source: The God Delusion

Source: I Am America

Source: Fear of Flying

The old religions said that he was an atheist who did not believe in God. The new religion says that he is an atheist who does not believe in himself.
Call to the Nation

Attributed
Source: Quoted in The Wit and Wisdom of Quentin Crisp

Source: Why Are You Atheists So Angry? 99 Things That Piss Off the Godless

Section 62
The True Believer (1951), Part Three: United Action and Self-Sacrifice

You Can Lead an Atheist to Evidence, But You Can't Make Him Think (2009)
Source: You Can Lead an Atheist to Evidence, But You Can't Make Him Think: Answers to Questions from Angry Skeptics

"Down the River", p. 163
Desert Solitaire (1968)

p. xiii http://books.google.com/books?id=KsI3sswEg14C&pg=PR13&dq=%22you+don't+have+to+be+brave+or+a+saint%22
2010s, God, No!: Signs You May Already Be an Atheist and Other Magical Tales (2011)
Source: God, No! Signs You May Already Be an Atheist and Other Magical Tales

Misattributed

Source: 2010s, 2011, Mortality (2012), p. 91.

Source: Contact

Books, Brain Droppings (1997)

Source: Claimed By Shadow

Source: Invisible Monsters

Source: Ask the Dust

Source: Life of Pi (2001), Chapter 1, p. 5

Source: At Home: Essays 1982-1988

Source: Guilty Pleasures

Interview with Alex Haley

Audio message as quoted in ISIS leader releases rare audio message as Iraqi troops enter Mosul by Euan McKirdy, CNN (November 3 2016)
Attributed
Source: http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/02/middleeast/al-baghdadi-audio-mosul/