Quotesia
Home
Authors
Popular authors
Helen Keller
Henry Miller
Ellen Glasgow
William Lloyd Garrison
Richard L. Evans
Albert Camus
All authors
Today's birthdays
1955 - Tony Dungy
1914 - Thor Heyerdahl
1949 - Penny Junor
1979 - Richard Seymour
1895 - Caroline Gordon
1940 - Jerry Heller
Today's birthdays
Popular professions
Cartoonist
Saint
Philosopher
Astronaut
Author
Mathematician
All professions
Authors by letter
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z
All authors
Topics
Top Quotes
Quotesia
Favorite authors
Richard Dawkins Quotes
Richard Dawkins Quotes
Richard Dawkins
English
Scientist
Born:
Mar 26
,
1941
About
People
Religion
Science
Think
You
Related authors:
Ashley Montagu
Charles Darwin
Edward Jenner
Erasmus Darwin
Jacob Bronowski
Jane Goodall
Matthew Walker
Thomas Huxley
A delusion is something that people believe in despite a total lack of evidence.
Richard Dawkins
People
Believe
Despite
Evidence
Total
Something
Delusion
Lack
Let us try to teach generosity and altruism, because we are born selfish.
Richard Dawkins
Selfish
Try
Born
Generosity
Because
Altruism
Us
Teach
Let Us
It's a horrible idea that God, this paragon of wisdom and knowledge, power, couldn't think of a better way to forgive us our sins than to come down to Earth in his alter ego as his son and have himself hideously tortured and executed so that he could forgive himself.
Richard Dawkins
Wisdom
God
Knowledge
Son
Ego
Better
Power
Down
Think
Our
Earth
Way
Tortured
Horrible
Could
He
Better Way
Idea
Come
Executed
Alter
Himself
His
Sins
Than
Forgive
Us
Down To Earth
Don't kid yourself that you're going to live again after you're dead; you're not. Make the most of the one life you've got. Live it to the full.
Richard Dawkins
Life
You
Yourself
Live
Kid
Most
Dead
Make
Got
Going
After
Again
Full
Religion is capable of driving people to such dangerous folly that faith seems to me to qualify as a kind of mental illness.
Richard Dawkins
Faith
Religion
Me
People
Dangerous
Kind
Folly
Mental
Seems
Mental Illness
Driving
Qualify
Capable
Illness
My eyes are constantly wide open to the extraordinary fact of existence. Not just human existence, but the existence of life and how this breathtakingly powerful process, which is natural selection, has managed to take the very simple facts of physics and chemistry and build them up to redwood trees and humans.
Richard Dawkins
Life
Eyes
Natural
Physics
Simple
Build
Chemistry
Trees
Extraordinary
Constantly
Fact
Selection
Take
Facts
Open
Powerful
How
Redwood
Existence
Up
Very
Human
Just
Process
Which
Human Existence
Them
Natural Selection
Wide
Humans
Religious fanatics want people to switch off their own minds, ignore the evidence, and blindly follow a holy book based upon private 'revelation'.
Richard Dawkins
Book
People
Blindly
Own
Minds
Evidence
Religious
Follow
Revelation
Private
Off
Want
Fanatics
Holy
Holy Book
Ignore
Switch
Based
Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence.
Richard Dawkins
Faith
Great
Think
Evidence
Spite
Excuse
Perhaps
Because
Lack
Evaluate
Even
Belief
Cop-Out
Need
We are all atheists about most of the gods that societies have ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.
Richard Dawkins
God
Further
Atheists
Some
About
Most
Go
Gods
Just
Us
Believed
Ever
Societies
I do sometimes accuse people of ignorance, but that is not intended to be an insult. I'm ignorant of lots of things. Ignorance is something that can be remedied by education.
Richard Dawkins
Education
Ignorance
People
Sometimes
Something
Insult
Lots
Intended
Accuse
Ignorant
Things
The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.
Richard Dawkins
Good
Evil
Nothing
Design
Universe
Indifference
Properties
Purpose
Bottom
Observe
Blind
Expect
Precisely
Should
My personal feeling is that understanding evolution led me to atheism.
Richard Dawkins
Me
Feeling
Understanding
Evolution
Atheism
Led
Personal
Personal Feeling
The central dogma of the New Testament is that Jesus died as a scapegoat for the sin of Adam and the sins that all we unborn generations might have been contemplating in the future. Adam's sin is perhaps mitigated by the extenuating circumstance that he didn't exist.
Richard Dawkins
Future
Circumstance
Scapegoat
Unborn
He
Generations
Sin
New
Contemplating
Perhaps
Dogma
Testament
Been
Exist
Sins
New Testament
Died
Central
Might
Jesus
Adam
How can you take seriously someone who likes to believe something because he finds it 'comforting'?
Richard Dawkins
You
Comforting
Seriously
Believe
Finds
Someone
Something
Take
He
Likes
Because
How
Who
We cannot, of course, disprove God, just as we can't disprove Thor, fairies, leprechauns and the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
Richard Dawkins
God
Monster
Thor
Flying
We Cannot
Fairies
Course
Just
Cannot
Spaghetti
Disprove
Biology is the study of complicated things that have the appearance of having been designed with a purpose.
Richard Dawkins
Complicated
Biology
Complicated Things
Having
Purpose
Study
Been
Appearance
Things
Designed
Natural selection is anything but random.
Richard Dawkins
Natural
Random
Selection
Anything
Natural Selection
An Internet meme is a hijacking of the original idea. Instead of mutating by random change and spreading by a form of Darwinian selection, Internet memes are altered deliberately by human creativity. There is no attempt at accuracy of copying, as with genes - and as with memes in their original version.
Richard Dawkins
Change
Creativity
Internet
Random
Meme
Memes
Darwinian
Deliberately
Selection
Attempt
Instead
Idea
Genes
Hijacking
Altered
Spreading
Version
Accuracy
Human
Form
Original
Original Idea
Copying
The chances of each of us coming into existence are infinitesimally small, and even though we shall all die some day, we should count ourselves fantastically lucky to get our decades in the sun.
Richard Dawkins
Day
Our
Sun
Though
Ourselves
Some
Small
Shall
Count
Coming
Existence
Decades
Get
Die
Us
Should
Lucky
Even
Each
Chance
Chances
It has become almost a cliche to remark that nobody boasts of ignorance of literature, but it is socially acceptable to boast ignorance of science and proudly claim incompetence in mathematics.
Richard Dawkins
Mathematics
Ignorance
Science
Become
Incompetence
Claim
Remark
Almost
Nobody
Cliche
Acceptable
Proudly
Literature
Boast
Socially
Every night of our lives, we dream, and our brain concocts visions which are, at least until we wake up, highly convincing. Most of us have had experiences which are verging on hallucination. It shows the power of the brain to knock up illusions.
Richard Dawkins
Wake Up
Power
Every
Our
Our Lives
Visions
Dream
Had
Highly
Knock
Most
Until
Hallucination
Least
Brain
Wake
Up
Experiences
Which
Us
Convincing
Shows
Illusions
Lives
Every Night
Night
Science has taught us, against all intuition, that apparently solid things like crystals and rocks are really almost entirely composed of empty space. And the familiar illustration is the nucleus of an atom is a fly in the middle of a sports stadium, and the next atom is in the next sports stadium.
Richard Dawkins
Sports
Science
Space
Fly
Empty Space
Illustration
Solid
Composed
Intuition
Atom
Entirely
Almost
Like
Crystals
Empty
Rocks
Familiar
Stadium
Taught
Middle
Against
Us
Really
Next
Apparently
Things
Personally, I rather look forward to a computer program winning the world chess championship. Humanity needs a lesson in humility.
Richard Dawkins
Needs
Humanity
World
Lesson
Humility
Rather
Winning
Computer
Computer Program
Computers
Look
Chess
Personally
Forward
Championship
Program
Even if you believe a creator god invented the laws of physics, would you so insult him as to suggest that he might capriciously and arbitrarily violate them in order to walk on water, or turn water into wine as a cheap party trick at a wedding?
Richard Dawkins
God
You
Physics
Water
Walk
Wine
Party
Believe
Trick
Would
Invented
Laws
Wedding
Cheap
He
Him
Insult
Order
Them
Might
Turn
Even
Creator
Violate
Suggest
I am against religion because it teaches us to be satisfied with not understanding the world.
Richard Dawkins
Religion
World
I Am
Understanding
Satisfied
Because
Am
Against
Us
Teaches
If children understand that beliefs should be substantiated with evidence, as opposed to tradition, authority, revelation or faith, they will automatically work out for themselves that they are atheists.
Richard Dawkins
Work
Faith
Will
Evidence
Out
Atheists
Understand
Revelation
Opposed
Tradition
Authority
Children
Automatically
Work Out
Themselves
Should
Beliefs
Load more quotes
No more Richard Dawkins quotes
Haven't find the right quote? Try quotes from authors related to Richard Dawkins.
Ashley Montagu
Charles Darwin
Edward Jenner
Erasmus Darwin