Kill a man, and you are an assassin. Kill millions of men, and you are a conqueror. Kill everyone, and you are a god.

The various modes of religion which prevailed in the Roman world were all considered by the people as equally true, by the philosophers equally false, and by the magistrate as equally useful.

I can’t see (or feel) the conflict between love and religion. To me they’re the same thing.

Educate people without religion and you make them but clever devils.

We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.

The most dangerous madmen are those created by religion, and people whose aim is to disrupt society always know how to make good use of them.

The state dictates and coerces; religion teaches and persuades. The state enacts laws; religion gives commandments. The state is armed with physical force and makes use of it if need be; the force of religion is love and benevolence.

God is really only another artist. He invented the giraffe, the elephant, and the cat. He has no real style. He just goes on trying other things.

To place oneself in the position of God is painful: being God is equivalent to being tortured. For being God means that one is in harmony with all that is, including the worst. The existence of the worst evils is unimaginable unless God willed them.

So long as one believes in God, one has the right to do the Good in order to be moral.

One religion is as true as another.

The Church says that the earth is flat, but I know that it is round, for I have seen the shadow on the moon, and I have more faith in the shadow than in the Church.

If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.