Michel Onfray · 240 pages
Rating: (2.9K votes)
“How strange that excision – female circumcision, with several languages using the same term for both kinds of mutilation – of little girls should revolt the westerner but excite no disapproval when it is performed on little boys. Consensus on the point seems absolute. But ask your interlocutor to think about the validity of this surgical procedure, which consists of removing a healthy part of a nonconsenting child’s body on nonmedical grounds – the legal definition of… mutilation.”
― Michel Onfray, quote from Atheist Manifesto: The Case Against Christianity, Judaism, and Islam
“You cannot kill a breeze, a wind, a fragrance, you cannot kill a dream or an ambition. God, manufactured by mortals in their own quintessential image, exists only to make daily life bearable despite the path that every one of us treads toward extinction. As long as men are obliged to die, some of them, unable to endure the prospect, will concoct fond illusions.We cannot assassinate or kill an illusion. In fact, illusion is more likely to kill us — for God puts to death everything that stands up to him, beginning with reason, intelligence, and the critical mind. All the rest follows in a chain reaction.”
― Michel Onfray, quote from Atheist Manifesto: The Case Against Christianity, Judaism, and Islam
“Désormais, sous prétexte de laïcité, tous les discours se valent : l’erreur et la vérité, le faux et le vrai, le fantasque et le sérieux. Le mythe et la fable pèsent autant que la raison. La magie compte autant que la science. Le rêve autant que la réalité. Or tous les discours ne se valent pas : ceux de la névrose, de l’hystérie et du mysticisme procèdent d’un autre monde que celui du positiviste. Pas plus qu’on ne doit renvoyer dos à dos bourreau et victime, bien et mal, on ne doit tolérer la neutralité, la bienveillance affichée pour la totalité des régimes de discours, y compris ceux des pensées magiques. Faut-il rester neutre ? Doit-on rester neutre ? A-t-on encore les moyens de ce luxe ? Je ne crois pas...”
― Michel Onfray, quote from Atheist Manifesto: The Case Against Christianity, Judaism, and Islam
“La démocratie vit de mouvements, de changements, d’agencements contractuels, de temps fluides, de dynamiques permanentes, de jeux dialectiques. Elle se crée, vit, change, se métamorphose, se construit en regard d’un vouloir issu de forces vivantes. Elle recourt à l’usage de la raison, au dialogue des parties prenantes, à l’agir communicationnel, à la diplomatie autant qu’à la négociation. La théocratie fonctionne à l’inverse : elle nait, vit et jouit de l’immobilité, de la mort et de l’irrationnel. La théocratie est l’ennemie la plus à craindre de la démocratie, avant-hier à Paris avant 1789, hier à Téhéran en 1978, et aujourd’hui chaque fois qu’Al-Quaïda fait parler la poudre.”
― Michel Onfray, quote from Atheist Manifesto: The Case Against Christianity, Judaism, and Islam
“(...) L’intelligence, cette vertu sublime que définit l’art de lier ce qui, a priori, et pour la plupart, passe pour délié.”
― Michel Onfray, quote from Atheist Manifesto: The Case Against Christianity, Judaism, and Islam
“Every theocracy is a denial of democracy. Even better: the smallest hint of theocracy neutralizes the very essence of democracy.”
― Michel Onfray, quote from Atheist Manifesto: The Case Against Christianity, Judaism, and Islam
“Amazing," Edward muttered. "How can someone so tiny be so annoying?"
Alice laughed. "It's a talent.”
― Stephenie Meyer, quote from Eclipse
“The Golden Arches are now more widely recognized than the Christian cross.”
― Eric Schlosser, quote from Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal
“Kate makes good sausage," Jim said.
Six pairs of eyes stared at me. Thank you, Mr. Wonderful. Just what I needed.
"Oh yeah," Andrea snapped her fingers. "The links? The ones we had the beginning of the month? I didn't know you made those. I thought they were bought. They were so good." Her smile was positively cherubic. Of all the times not to be able to shoot laser beams out of my eyes...
"What do you put into your sausage, Kate?" Raphael wanted to know, giving me a perfectly innocent look.
Werejaguars with big mouths with a pinch of werehyena thrown in. "Venison and rabbit."
"That sounds like some fine sausage," Doolittle said. "Will you share the recipe?"
"Sure."
"I had no idea you were a sausage expert," Curran said with a completely straight face.
Die, die, die, die...
Even Derek cracked a smile. Raphael put his head down on the table and jerked a little.
"Is he choking?" Dali asked, wrinkling her forehead.
"No, he just needs a moment," Curran said. "Young bouda males. Easily excitable.”
― Ilona Andrews, quote from Magic Strikes
“I don't think science is hard to teach because humans aren't ready for it, or because it arose only through a fluke, or because, by and large, we don't have the brainpower to grapple with it. Instead, the enormous zest for science that I see in first-graders and the lesson from the remnant hunter-gatherers both speak eloquently: A proclivity for science is embedded deeply within us, in all times, places, and cultures. It has been the means for our survival. It is our birthright. When, through indifference, inattention, incompetence, or fear of skepticism, we discourage children from science, we are disenfranchising them, taking from them the tools needed to manage their future.”
― Carl Sagan, quote from The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
“Mind the dead man, my dear.”
― Rachel Caine, quote from Carpe Corpus
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