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It seems to me that the idea of a personal God is an anthropomorphic concept which I cannot take seriously. I feel also not able to imagine some will or goal outside the human sphere. My views are near to those of Spinoza: admiration for the beauty of and belief in the logical simplicity of the order and harmony which we can grasp humbly and only imperfectly. I believe that we have to content ourselves with our imperfect knowledge and understanding and treat values and moral obligations as a purely human problem—the most important of all human problems.

— Albert Einstein Attributed Einstein and Religion (1999)

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Atheism

More quotes by Albert Einstein

Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.

Essay to Leo Baeck (1953)

A happy man is too satisfied with the present to dwell too much on the future.

Try to become not a man of success, but try rather to become a man of value.

Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving.

Generations to come, it may well be, will scarce believe that such a man as this one ever in flesh and blood walked upon this Earth.

Statement on the occasion of Gandhi's 70th birthday (1939)

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Most intellectual people do not believe in God, but they fear him just the same.

Wilhelm Reich Philosophy : An Introduction to the Art of Wondering (2005)

Religion in so far as it is a source of consolation is a hindrance to true faith; and in this sense atheism is a purification.

Simone Weil

One of the most exquisite pleasures of human love — to serve the loved one without his knowing it — is only possible, as regards the love of God, through atheism.

Simone Weil Last Notebook (1942)

In the province of the mind, what one believes to be true is true or becomes true, within certain limits to be found experientially and experimentally. These limits are further beliefs to be transcended.

John C. Lilly The Human Biocomputer (1974)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Albert Einstein (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.