quote:

I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. - Voltaire? (not sure on that one)

• "Any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae."
• "I can have oodles of charm when I want"
  
• "We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be."
• "So it goes."
• "We're not too young for love, just too young for about everything there is that goes with love."
• "You realize, of course, that everything I say is horseshit."

• The mystical trend of our time, which shows itself particularly in the rampant growth of the so-called Theosophy and Spiritualism, is for me no more than a symptom of weakness and confusion. Since our inner experiences consist of reproductions, and combinations of sensory impressions, the concept of a soul without a body seem to me to be empty and devoid of meaning.
  - Albert Einstein, letter of February 5, 1921
  
• I cannot conceive of a God who rewards and punishes his creatures, or has a will of the kind that we experience in ourselves. Neither can I nor would I want to conceive of an individual that survives his physical death; let feeble souls, from fear or absurd egoism, cherish such thoughts. I am satisfied with the mystery of the eternity of life and with the awareness and a glimpse of the marvelous structure of the existing world, together with the devoted striving to comprehend a portion, be it ever so tiny, of the Reason that manifests itself in nature.
  - Albert Einstein, The World As I See It
  
• Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because if there be one he must approve of the homage of reason more than that of blindfolded fear.
  -Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Peter Carr, August 10, 1787
  
• 
  Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity.
  -Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, 1782
  
• Two different theories exist concerning the origin of children: the theory of Sexual reproduction, and the theory of the stork. Many people believe in the theory of sexual reproduction because they have been taught this theory at school. In reality, however, many of the world's leading scientists are in favor of the theory of the stork. If the theory of sexual reproduction is taught in schools, it must only be taught as a theory and not as the truth. Alternative theories, such as the theory of the stork, must also be taught.
  - from the Institute for Stork Research and Science

• If we did a good act merely from love of God and a belief that it is pleasing to Him, whence arises the morality of the Atheist? ...Their virtue, then, must have had some other foundation than the love of God.
  -Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Thomas Law, June 13, 1814

• Science and art belong to the whole world, and before them vanish the barriers of nationality.
  -Goethe

• I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.
  -Isaac Newton
  
• The strongest arguments prove nothing so long as the conclusions are not verified by experience. Experimental science is the queen of sciences and the goal of all speculation.
  -Roger Bacon
  
• Reason and free inquiry are the only effectual agents against error.
  -Thomas Jefferson