Secular Quotes

“Christmas can be celebrated in the school room with pine trees, tinsel and reindeers, but there must be no mention of the man whose birthday is being celebrated. One wonders how a teacher would answer if a student asked why it was called Christmas.”
― Ronald Reagan

“I was once reproved by a minister who was driving a poor beast to some meeting-house horse-sheds among the hills of New Hampshire, because I was bending my steps to a mountain-top on the Sabbath, instead of a church, when I would have gone farther than he to hear a true word spoken on that or any day. He declared that I was 'breaking the Lord's fourth commandment,' and proceeded to enumerate, in a sepulchral tone, the disasters which had befallen him whenever he had done any ordinary work on the Sabbath. He really thought that a god was on the watch to trip up those men who followed any secular work on this day, and did not see that it was the evil conscience of the workers that did it. The country is full of this superstition, so that when one enters a village, the church, not only really but from association, is the ugliest looking building in it, because it is the one in which human nature stoops the lowest and is most disgraced. Certainly, such temples as these shall erelong cease to deform the landscape. There are few things more disheartening and disgusting than when you are walking the streets of a strange village on the Sabbath, to hear a preacher shouting like a boatswain in a gale of wind, and thus harshly profaning the quiet atmosphere of the day.”
― Henry David Thoreau, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers

“Self-righteousness is much like a spiritual egocentricity. It constitutes a secular type of love that thrives under conditionality, one in which is only existent after an individual meets the adopted standards of the condemner; oppositely, unconditional love is a holy love.”
― Criss Jami, Salomé: In Every Inch In Every Mile

“It was the general opinion of ancient nations, that the divinity alone was adequate to the important office of giving laws to men... and modern nations, in the consecrations of kings, and in several superstitious chimeras of divine rights in princes and nobles, are nearly unanimous in preserving remnants of it... Is the jealousy of power, and the envy of superiority, so strong in all men, that no considerations of public or private utility are sufficient to engage their submission to rules for their own happiness? Or is the disposition to imposture so prevalent in men of experience, that their private views of ambition and avarice can be accomplished only by artifice? — … There is nothing in which mankind have been more unanimous; yet nothing can be inferred from it more than this, that the multitude have always been credulous, and the few artful. The United States of America have exhibited, perhaps, the first example of governments erected on the simple principles of nature: and if men are now sufficiently enlightened to disabuse themselves of artifice, imposture, hypocrisy, and superstition, they will consider this event as an era in their history. Although the detail of the formation of the American governments is at present little known or regarded either in Europe or America, it may hereafter become an object of curiosity. It will never be pretended that any persons employed in that service had any interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the inspiration of heaven, any more than those at work upon ships or houses, or labouring in merchandize or agriculture: it will for ever be acknowledged that these governments were contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses. As Copley painted Chatham, West, Wolf, and Trumbull, Warren and Montgomery; as Dwight, Barlow, Trumbull, and Humphries composed their verse, and Belknap and Ramzay history; as Godfrey invented his quadrant, and Rittenhouse his planetarium; as Boylston practised inoculation, and Franklin electricity; as Paine exposed the mistakes of Raynal, and Jefferson those of Buffon, so unphilosophically borrowed from the Recherches Philosophiques sur les Américains those despicable dreams of de Pauw — neither the people, nor their conventions, committees, or sub-committees, considered legislation in any other light than ordinary arts and sciences, only as of more importance. Called without expectation, and compelled without previous inclination, though undoubtedly at the best period of time both for England and America, to erect suddenly new systems of laws for their future government, they adopted the method of a wise architect, in erecting a new palace for the residence of his sovereign. They determined to consult Vitruvius, Palladio, and all other writers of reputation in the art; to examine the most celebrated buildings, whether they remain entire or in ruins; compare these with the principles of writers; and enquire how far both the theories and models were founded in nature, or created by fancy: and, when this should be done, as far as their circumstances would allow, to adopt the advantages, and reject the inconveniences, of all. Unembarrassed by attachments to noble families, hereditary lines and successions, or any considerations of royal blood, even the pious mystery of holy oil had no more influence than that other of holy water: the people universally were too enlightened to be imposed on by artifice; and their leaders, or more properly followers, were men of too much honour to attempt it. Thirteen governments thus founded on the natural authority of the people alone, without a pretence of miracle or mystery, which are destined to spread over the northern part of that whole quarter of the globe, are a great point gained in favour of the rights of mankind.

[Preface to 'A Defence of the Constitutions of the United States of America', 1787]”
― John Adams, A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America

“Do not all theists insist that there can be no morality, no justice, honesty or fidelity without the belief in a Divine Power? Based upon fear and hope, such morality has always been a vile product, imbued partly with self-righteousness, partly with hypocrisy. As to truth, justice, and fidelity, who have been their brave exponents and daring proclaimers? Nearly always the godless ones: the Atheists; they lived, fought, and died for them. They knew that justice, truth, and fidelity are not conditioned in heaven, but that they are related to and interwoven with the tremendous changes going on in the social and material life of the human race; not fixed and eternal, but fluctuating, even as life itself.”
― Emma Goldman, The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever

“My sense of the holy is bound up with the hope that some day my remote descendants will live in a global civilization in which love is pretty much the only law.”
― Richard M. Rorty

“Modern colonialism won its great victories not so much through its military and technological prowess as through its ability to create secular hierarchies incompatible with the traditional order.”
― Ashis Nandy, The Intimate Enemy: Loss and Recovery of Self Under Colonialism

“Looking at Great-Great Grandpa Baldwin's photograph, I think to myself: You've finally done it. It took four generations, but you've finally goddamned done it. Gotten that war against reason and uppity secularists you always wanted. Gotten even for the Scopes trial, which they say was one of many burrs under your saddle until your last breath. Well, rejoice, old man, because your tribes have gathered around America's oldest magical hairball of ignorance and superstition, Christian fundamentalism, and their numbers have enabled them to suck so much oxygen out of the political atmosphere that they are now acknowledged as a mainstream force in politics. Episcopalians, Jews, and affluent suburban Methodists and Catholics, they are all now scratching their heads, sweating, and swearing loudly that this pack of lower-class zealots cannot possibly represent the mainstream--not the mainstream they learned about in their fancy sociology classes or were so comfortably reassured about by media commentators who were people like themselves. Goodnight, Grandpa Baldwin. I'll toast you from hell.”
― Joe Bageant, Deer Hunting with Jesus: Dispatches from America's Class War

“I don't believe for a minute that the proof of God's existence is achieved. My faith prohibits me from believing that the proof of God's existence can ever be adduced. My God is not an object for verification, He is a subject for love. My faith is not knowledge, it is acceptance. It is a matter not of calculation but of trust.”
― Laurence Cossé, A Corner of the Veil

“If you can't find truth outside your scripture, your scripture is a lie.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Dervis Vadisi: 100 Promissory Sonnets

“Some people need God, others don't feel the need for it, for whatever reason. But the fact of the matter is, even those who do not believe in God, occasionally end up talking to some sort of fictitious figure, such as a loved one who has passed away. And what's wrong with that?

Personal fiction is a psychological necessity of the individual – hence, a right - why can't we simply accept it as such! Why do we have to diss another person for not believing in the same kind of fiction that we believe in! It is time we become an aid to each other's light, not an impediment.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Himalayan Sonneteer: 100 Sonnets of Unsubmission

“Religion is a right, fundamentalism is not.”
― Abhijit Naskar, World War Human: 100 New Earthling Sonnets

“No belief is inferior, diverse beliefs are diverse means of self-preservation.”
― Abhijit Naskar, The Divine Refugee

“No testament is full testament, gospel supreme is mind indivisible.”
― Abhijit Naskar, The Humanitarian Dictator

“I believe in the right to belief,
but not as excuse for discrimination.
My holiness has place for all myths,
but not for myths used for division.”
― Abhijit Naskar, The Humanitarian Dictator

“All faith is blind faith,
that's not the problem.
All fiction is good fiction,
till it turns intolerant.”
― Abhijit Naskar, The Humanitarian Dictator

“True holiness begins at the end of all hate.”
― Abhijit Naskar, The Humanitarian Dictator

“The believer is not to turn atheist, the atheist is not to turn a believer. Earth is a big place with room for all, if only we could make our heart a bit wider!”
― Abhijit Naskar, The Humanitarian Dictator

“Hayat is my hadith,
Galaxies are my gita.
Interfaith, my torah,
Secularism, my sutta.”
― Abhijit Naskar, The Humanitarian Dictator

“La religión que no trae unidad, no es religión, sino el pecado original.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Generacion Justicia: Día de Los Vivos, Abigitano 2

“I believe in the right to belief.”
― Abhijit Naskar, The Humanitarian Dictator

“Tolerance is the better name for divinity.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Little Planet on The Prairie: Dunya Benim, Sorumluluk Benim

“In the absence of tolerance, every nation is monkeys’ nation.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Little Planet on The Prairie: Dunya Benim, Sorumluluk Benim

“No one on earth should suffer to satisfy someone's puritanical beliefs.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Azad Earth Army: When The World Cries Blood

“All roads spring from people, and they lead back to the people.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Azad Earth Army: When The World Cries Blood

“All roads spring from people,
and they lead back to the people.
Whenever we deviate from each other,
we are bound to end back in the jungle.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Azad Earth Army: When The World Cries Blood

“Gentle and tolerant in default demeanor, tenacious in reason facing prejudice, neither religious nor intellectual, I am a humanitarian fundamentalist.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Azad Earth Army: When The World Cries Blood

“Dogma deserted is harmony harvested.”
― Abhijit Naskar, The God Sonnets: Naskar Art of Theology

“I grew up celebrating Diwali, eating fruitcake on the 25th, and waking up to the call of azaan. If I'm devout anything, it's a devout human.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Neurosonnets: The Naskar Art of Neuroscience

“I am love, I am tolerance, I am what
bigoted monkeys mock as woke and DEI.
No matter what dogmatic primates believe,
prisons of doctrines are not my paradise.”
― Abhijit Naskar, The God Sonnets: Naskar Art of Theology