The atheist is a religious person. He believes in atheism as though it were a new religion. According to Renan, "The day after that on which the world should no longer believe in God, atheists would be the wretchedest of all men."

However different the holy causes people die for, they perhaps die basically for the same thing.

The self-despisers are less intent on their own increase than on the diminution of others. Where self-esteem is unobtainable, envy takes the place of greed.

We are ready to die for an opinion but not for a fact

It is not so much the example of others we imitate as the reflection of ourselves in their eyes and the echo of ourselves in their words.

It is startling to realize how much unbelief is necessary to make belief possible.

What Pascal said of an effective religion is true of any effective doctrine: it must be "contrary to nature, to common sense and to pleasure.