Voltaire

"Our wretched species is so made that those who walk on the well-trodden path always throw stones at those who are showing a new road." "It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong." "Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers." "It is hard to free fools from the chains they revere." "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." "Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd." "True greatness consists in the use of a powerful understanding to enlighten oneself and others." "The truths of religion are never so well understood as by those who have lost their power of reasoning." "Every sensible man, every honest man, must hold the Christian sect in horror. But what shall we substitute in its place? you say. What? A ferocious animal has sucked the blood of my relatives. I tell you to rid yourselves of this beast, and you ask me what you shall put in its place?" "Most of the great men of this world live as if they were atheists. Every man who has lived with his eyes open, knows that the knowledge of a God, his presence, and his justice, has not the slightest influence over the wars, the treaties, the objects of ambition, interest, or pleasure, in the pursuit of which they are wholly occupied." "Atheism is the vice of a few intelligent people."