“Elgar told me that he had no faith whatever in an afterlife: ‘I believe there is nothing but complete oblivion.’ ” …
Day: June 2, 1980
Barbara Smoker
“People who believe in a divine creator, trying to live their lives in obedience to his supposed wishes and in expectation of a supposed eternal reward, are victims of the …
Satyajit Ray
INTERVIEWER: “Do you believe in God?” RAY: “No. I don’t believe in religion either. At least not in organized religion. Nor have I felt the necessity for any personal religion.” …
Catherine the Great
“As Empress, Catherine endeavoured to enforce the enlightened humanitarian views of the great French Rationalists, with whom she was in complete sympathy. Her reforms, in regard to education, justice, sanitation, …
Yoram Kaniuk
“[Israel] established a state out of religion rather than the nation we almost became. Along the way we did not stop in the hallway of civilization, and religion attached itself …
Anthony B. Pinn
“For me the title is a way of capturing the decline and eventual death of a concept — God — that had been important to me for years. I wanted …
Léon Gambetta
“Clericalism, that’s the enemy!” …
Lloyd Morain
“Back through the centuries whenever people have enjoyed keenly the sights and sounds and other sensations of the world about them, and enjoyed these for what they were — not …
Émile Zola
“Given Émile Zola’s reputation as an agnostic and a radical thinker, he has often been avoided by scholars with a religious background.” …
