reason Quotes

I have steadily endeavoured to keep my mind free so as to give up any hypothesis, however much beloved (and I cannot resist forming one on every subject), as soon as facts are shown to be opposed to it.

My mind seems to have become a kind of machine for grinding general laws out of large collections of facts.

I enjoy science, and I'm a very curious person. I always want to know the reason behind everything, big or small.

One of the things that is wrong with religion is that it teaches us to be satisfied with answers which are not really answers at all.

To an honest judge, the alleged marriage between religion and science is a shallow, empty, spin-doctored sham.

I am against religion because it teaches us to be satisfied with not understanding the world.

A universe with a God would look quite different from a universe without one. A physics, a biology where there is a God is bound to look different. So the most basic claims of religion are scientific. Religion is a scientific theory.

Disagreements between incompatible beliefs cannot be settled by reasoned argument because reasoned argument is drummed out of those trained in religion from the cradle.

Design can never be an ultimate explanation for anything. It can only be a proximate explanation. A plane or a car is explained by a designer but that's because the designer himself, the engineer, is explained by natural selection.

Of course, we would love to know more about the exact moment of Big Bang, but interposing an outside intelligence does nothing to add to that knowledge, as we still know nothing about the creation of that intelligence.