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Terry Sanderson (1946–2022)
If the religious arguments seem irrelevant or cruel, there is another approach which relies on the power of human good, […]
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H. G. Wells (1866–1946)
More science is needed, more interchange and more co-ordination. Act to that end. This is my philosophy of action; this […]
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Helen Mary Dexter (1880–1948)
For many years a member of the Rationalist Press Association, and no longer associated with any church, she had devoted […]
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Constance Dowman (1915–1982)
In all her work for the humanist movement, Constance Dowman said little and did much… She was one of the […]
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Charles Albert Watts (1858–1946)
Charles Albert Watts was a lifelong promoter of rationalism, and the founder in 1885 of Watts’s Literary Guide, still published […]
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Charles Watts (1836–1906)
Avoiding alike mysticism and shallow denial, he was a true Agnostic, anxious not merely to beat down error, but to […]
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Jim Herrick (1944–2023)
Humanism is a way to live, to give meaning to life and to find an understanding of our place in […]
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David Pollock (1942-2023)
David Pollock was a towering figure in the humanist movement. A longtime member, activist, trustee, and former Chair, he was […]
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Antony Grey (1927-2010)
By Mia Nathan Constantly having to combat irrational and dangerous thinking is strenuous and sometimes tedious, but not necessarily boring. […]
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James Berry (1924-2017)
The difference and variety of our human family more and more seems to me to be a wise provision that […]
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Ritchie Calder (1906–1982)
Humanist ethics, as I understand them, are concerned with mankind. As humanists we believe in reason, but we also believe […]
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Alfred Kinsey (1894-1956)
By Steve Ratcliff Steve has been researching humanists from LGBT history, focusing on digitised materials from the archives of LGBT […]
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A. E. Housman (1859-1936)
June suns, you cannot store them To warm the winter’s cold, The lad that hopes for heaven Shall fill his […]
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Edwin Morgan (1920-2010)
Because no one will believe without a splash from a fontTheir baby will howl in eternal cold, or fire,And no […]
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Francis Sheehy-Skeffington (1878–1916)
A distinctively Edwardian rationalist radical, he himself agreed that he was a crank – ‘a small instrument that makes revolutions’. […]
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John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946)
Words ought to be a little wild, for they are the assault of thoughts upon the unthinking. J.M. Keynes in […]
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Bill Sefton (1915–2001)
To summarise why I have become a rationalist is a difficult task for one not educated in formal writing, but […]
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Lindsay Burnet (1905–1985)
It is essential to get it recognised that good and graceful living is sufficient in itself; further, that this is […]
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Kit Mouat (1920–1986)
Harriet Martineau described her escape to atheism like this: “I lingered long on the stages of speculation and taste, but […]
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John Boyd Orr (1880–1971)
The big problem of today is how shall we adjust these tremendous new forces so that they can be harnessed […]
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Doris Lessing (1919–2013)
I lost religion in a breath; Heaven fled from me on the wings of Reason… Doris Lessing, Under My Skin: […]
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W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965)
I remain an agnostic, and the practical outcome of agnosticism is that you act as though God did not exist. […]
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Greevz Fisher (1845-1931)
Mr. Fysher was in many respects a remarkable man. His interests were wide, and whatever he took up he carried […]
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Edith Hinchley (1870–1940)
The woman artist appears quickly to have grasped the fact that she cannot maintain an isolated and merely selfish point […]
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V. M. Tarkunde (1909–2004)
The basic human value is freedom, which means the right of a human being to live a human life. V.M. […]
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Eslanda Goode Robeson (1895–1965)
I am willing and eager to surrender as much of my personal sovereignty as is necessary, in order to secure […]
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James Baldwin (1924-1987)
If the concept of God has any validity or any use, it can only be to make us larger, freer, […]
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Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1964)
Essentially, I am interested in this world, in this life, not in some other world or a future life. Whether […]
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Fabian Society
If any delegate present thinks that the Fabian Society was wise from the hour of its birth, let him forthwith […]
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From the archives: Vera Brittain’s toast to the Rationalist Press Association (1935)
I think that one of the most hopeful signs at the present day, and one for which this Movement can […]
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Marjorie Abbatt (1899–1991)
They weren’t just trying to sell something to parents, they were helping them to understand how to play with and […]
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Michael Manley (1924–1997)
I like life with its mysteries. I don’t need my imponderables filled in for me. Michael Manley quoted by Rachel […]
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Michael Tippett (1905-1998)
A wide-ranging Humanism will always seek to extend to more and more people, through education and opportunity, the enrichment of […]
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Louisa Thomson-Price (1864-1926)
We hold that only by making happiness for those around us, and by endeavoring, individually, to make the world a […]
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John D. Stewart (1917-1988)
I think I was born a humanist. John D. Stewart, The Honest Ulsterman, May 1968 John D. Stewart was a […]
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Janet Chance (1886–1953)
If the church was wrong, as of old, to trust to prayer in an epidemic, why shall she be right […]
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George Peabody Gooch (1873–1968)
Conscience is older than any existing Church or creed. George Peabody Gooch, Under Six Reigns (1958) George Peabody Gooch was […]
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H. Montgomery Hyde (1907–89)
Harford Montgomery Hyde was a Belfast-born barrister, politician, author, and humanist, who championed humane legal reforms and progressive social attitudes. […]
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Storm Jameson (1891-1986)
I hold that a writer should not in any circumstances or for any cause surrender his duty to criticise and […]
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Mona Caird (1854–1932)
Belief in the power of man to choose his direction of change: this is the creed of the future, and […]
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Nina Spiller (1878–1967)
Nina Spiller was a lifelong worker for women’s rights, who played an active role in the humanist movement for more […]
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Eleanor Rathbone (1872-1946)
Only victory will put an end to it all. But meantime let no one say: ‘We are not responsible.’ We […]
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Sally Greengross (1935–2022)
Universal rights are exactly that, universal, and one should not suddenly acquire different rights after a certain number of birthdays. […]
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C.K. Ogden (1889-1957)
If he had ever worshipped at any shrine, it would have been one illumined with the flame of pure intellect. […]
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George Orwell (1903–1950)
You can always appeal to common decency, which the vast majority of people believe in without the need to tie […]
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Kader Asmal (1934–2011)
Can there be a more important human condition than dignity? Without it, we are bitter, downtrodden, unheard, humiliated, embarrassed and […]
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Alexander Faulkner Shand (1858–1936)
…for a long time, like the philosophers of old, I was trying to find indisputable foundations. How long it took […]
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Beacon Hill School
Telegraph House stood on the West Sussex Downs, very near to the highest point called Beacon Hill… It stood out […]
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Prior’s Field School
Prior’s Field School was founded in 1902 by Julia Arnold Huxley. Born in 1862, Julia grew up in an intellectual […]
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John Henry Muirhead (1855–1940)
Throughout his life, Professor of Philosophy, John Muirhead, sought to put his ethical principles into practice. Indeed, whilst philosophers are […]
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John Galsworthy (1867–1933)
…the only efficient, the only decent prayer, is Action. John Galsworthy, ‘Philosophy of Life’ in Glimpses and Reflections (1937) Best […]
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Lilian Sauter 1864-1924
Lift the heart to high endeavour! Fire the thought and nerve the will! Though the bonds be hard to sever, […]
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Ouida (1839-1908)
[Ouida’s] exaggerated enthusiasms made readers smile, but they also made them think. It would be difficult to overstate the effect […]
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Wales
Wales has long been a nation of nonconformists, with a history of challenging the power and influence of the established […]
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Alice Jenkins (1886-1967)
Every movement requires its handful of pioneers who are prepared to stand up and be counted — to be abused, […]
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From the archives: ‘Why the Humanist Movement Began’
This article was written for Humanist News by Harold Blackham, who is viewed today as the architect of the modern […]
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Bill Bynner (1900-1984)
Bill Bynner was a humanist, socialist, and civil servant. As the editor of South Place Ethical Society‘s Ethical Record wrote […]
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Winifred Holtby (1898-1935)
The attempt to create communities where men and women alike share the full stature of humanity is an attempt to […]
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Mary Sheepshanks (1872-1960)
Mary Sheepshanks was a humanist who saw her feminist, pacifist, and cosmopolitan beliefs as being natural expressions of her humanist […]
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John Boyd (1912-2002)
We can’t help the universe, but at least we can do something to help ourselves. Can’t we? John Boyd, Across […]
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Jack McDowell (1923-2006)
Belfast-born Jack McDowell was an activist, educator, politician, and atheist, whose humanism was evident in a lifetime of work for […]
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John Stewart Bell (1928-1990)
In the beginning natural philosophers tried to understand the world around them. Trying to do that they hit upon the […]
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Sylvia Pankhurst (1882-1960)
Against the militarist totalitarian state, I have striven. For the freedom of the human spirit to develop under the kindly […]
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Presidents of Humanists UK
Humanists UK began as the Union of Ethical Societies in 1896, becoming the Ethical Union in 1920, the British Humanist […]
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Millicent Mackenzie (1863-1942)
Millicent Mackenzie was a pioneering educationist and suffragist, who – alongside her husband, John Stuart Mackenzie – gave significant support […]
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Stella Browne (1880-1955)
What is this ban on abortion? It is a sexual taboo, it is the terror that women should experiment and […]
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Helena Swanwick (1864-1939)
Life would be far more truly envisaged if we dropped the silly phrases “men’s and women’s questions”; for indeed there […]
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Humanist Ceremonies
People have always looked for ways to mark significant events in their lives, and though many ceremonies have often been […]
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Henry Noel Brailsford (1873–1958)
Our goal must be the good of the whole human society. Henry Noel Brailsford, Olives of Endless Age: being a […]
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Clementina Anstruther-Thomson (1857-1921)
I for one don’t believe in looking regretfully back into the past or forward with illusive hopes into the future, […]
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Dorothy Thurtle (1890-1973)
No law can be effective which has not behind it the sanction of the people. Dorothy Thurtle, quoted by David […]
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Kingsley Martin (1897-1969)
I believe in the supreme virtue of exploring. I believe in finding out. Even if I don’t succeed, I still […]
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Rationalist Peace Society
…a slowly growing public opinion in favour of arbitration as the alternative to war… is not in consequence of any […]
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Clement Attlee (1883-1967)
…having now exceeded the age of three score years and ten, I would say that up to the present I […]
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William Beveridge (1879-1963)
The one thing in which I am interested wholly and completely is the getting to know something about human society […]
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National Health Service
When Nigel Lawson said in 1992 that the National Health Service was the ‘closest thing the English have to a […]
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Hypatia Bradlaugh Bonner (1858-1935)
When we are asked to believe that nothing but a supernatural ideal can inspire and sustain a life-time of complete […]
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Peace Pledge Union
We are living in critical days. It is not enough to desire peace or to talk peace. We must make […]
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Manchester University Ethical Society
Object: to provide an ‘open forum’ for the fearless consideration of modern problems relating to ethics, sociology, education, political theory, […]
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Ipswich Heretics
We must grow out of the crude and unreal ideas of immortality and content ourselves with the only kind of […]
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Belfast Ethical Society
This Society has for its object the promotion of right conduct on a purely natural and human basis and the […]
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Conscientious Objectors’ Commemorative Stone
To all those who have established and who are maintaining the right to refuse to kill. Their foresight and courage […]
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Bill Barbour (1920-2009)
William Pirrie Barbour was a classicist, codebreaker, teacher, and activist. A rationalist and humanist, Barbour championed integrated education in his […]
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Forrest Reid (1875-1947)
I have never believed in any formal religion, but I have experienced an emotion that seemed to me religious. In […]
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Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington (1877-1946)
Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington was an activist, feminist, and humanist, who founded the Irish Women’s Franchise League, and was described by the […]
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Kathleen Nott (1905-1999)
Now art, certainly literary art, is ‘existential’ and has to be so. It is, if nothing else, about the real […]
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Brigid Brophy (1929-1995)
We are (of all the synonyms I most prefer to ‘humanist’) freethinkers. We are deprived of nothing. We have lost […]
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Sara A. Underwood (1838-1911)
Man for man in larger sense does what heaven fails to do. Sara A. Underwood, quoted by Rufus K. Noyes […]
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Barbara Smoker (1923-2020)
To say that “God moves in mysterious ways” is to put up a smokescreen of mystery behind which fantasy may […]
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Karl Popper (1902-1994)
… the responsibility for our ethical decisions is entirely ours and cannot be shifted to anybody else; neither to God, […]
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Llewelyn Powys (1884-1939)
It has been suggested that matter is capable of destruction, that every atom is destined to be dissolved away in […]
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From the archives: Towards Freedom
Truth needs the friendly grip of earnest men and women of every class. There is no distinction where it dwells. […]
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Leighton Hall Neighbourhood Guild
Order is our Basis; Improvement our Aim; and Friendship our Principle. Annual Report of the Neighbourhood Guild, 1895 Leighton Hall […]
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Emily Josephine Troup (1853-1913)
Emily Josephine Troup was a composer, poet, and editor, who played a leading role in the musical life of South […]
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Elizabeth Wolstenholme Elmy (1833-1918)
… purely human and natural ethics, and not theology, was the source of this pioneer woman’s enthusiasm for justice, even […]
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The Cambridge Heretics
The gist of heresy is free personal choice in act, and specially in thought – the rejection of traditional faiths […]
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Glasnevin Cemetery
Glasnevin Cemetery is a nondenominational cemetery in Ireland, first opened in 1832. The brainchild of Catholic rights leader Daniel O’Connell, […]
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The Progressive League
The Progressive League was an organisation dedicated to the advancement of scientific humanism, founded by author H.G. Wells and philosopher […]
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Hector Hawton (1901-1975)
Humanism is less concerned with what to believe than with how to live. The meaning it gives to life lies […]
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Hermann Bondi (1919-2005)
It is in service to others, it is as members of the community, that our existence lies. Hermann Bondi, Humanism […]
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Max Gate
Max Gate is the former home of Thomas Hardy in Dorchester, Dorset. Hardy designed and lived in Max Gate from 1885 until […]
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Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)
Thomas Hardy was an English novelist and poet, renowned for his apparently bleak outlook, but finely tuned to life and […]
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John Hewitt Cairn
My chosen ground Inscription on the John Hewitt Cairn John Harold Hewitt (1907-1987) was the most significant Ulster poet to […]
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Harry Stopes-Roe (1924-2014)
Harry Stopes-Roe was one of the most tireless and dedicated humanist campaigners of the 20th century. Son of the influential […]
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Antony Flew (1923-2010)
Antony Flew was a British philosopher and was, for much of his life, a renowned atheist and eloquent proponent of […]
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Northern Ireland
A brief history of humanism and secularism in Northern Ireland Organised humanism began in Northern Ireland in the 19th century, […]
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Plaque for George Jacob Holyoake
On Woburn Walk is a plaque to George Jacob Holyoake (1817-1906), a writer, lecturer, and promoter of the Cooperative movement, […]
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Red Lion Square
As well as being home to Conway Hall and its humanist library, Red Lion Square contains statues of two prominent […]
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The British Museum
The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections include objects of humanist heritage […]
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Claude McKay (1889-1948)
I have adhered to such of the older traditions as I find adequate for my most lawless and revolutionary passions […]
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Bessie Braddock (1899-1970)
Bessie Braddock was a trade union activist and politician, who devoted her life to improving the lives of others. She […]
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UNESCO
Its main concern is with peace and security and with human welfare, in so far as they can be subserved […]
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Dora Russell (1894-1986)
I see this kind of love – the empathy that should be common to all living creatures – rather than […]
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Alan Turing (1912-1954)
We can only see a short distance ahead, but we can see plenty there that needs to be done. Alan […]
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M.N. Roy (1887-1954)
The realisation of the possibility of a secular rational morality opens up a new perspective before the modern world… It […]
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Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948)
The international significance and reputation of Mohandas Gandhi is well-known, but his involvement with the burgeoning humanist movement during the […]
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W.E.B. Du Bois (1868-1963)
If living does not give value, wisdom and meaning to life, then there is no sense in living at all. […]
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James Ramsay MacDonald (1866-1937)
The moral value of a belief in eternal life is a doubtful matter. But this is certain, that where rest […]
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Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
How strange is the lot of us mortals! Each of us is here for a brief sojourn; for what purpose […]
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Aneurin Bevan (1897-1960)
He was a great humanist whose religion lay in loving his fellow men and trying to serve them. These are […]
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National Portrait Gallery, London
The National Portrait Gallery is an art gallery primarily located in London but with various satellite outstations located elsewhere in […]
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Kensal Green Cemetery
Kensal Green, opened in 1833, was London’s first commercial cemetery, and the originator of the city’s ‘Magnificent Seven’. These suburban […]
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Highgate Cemetery
I was not, and was conceived. I loved and did a little work. I am not and grieve not. Epitaph […]
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James Hemming (1909-2007)
The time has arrived for us humans to stop leaning on ideas for a creator god; we should get down […]
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First International Moral Education Congress
To have thus assuaged the temper of controversy, to have softened much deep-seated prejudice and to have disposed some of […]
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Moral Instruction League
Its aim will be to secularise education and make moral training the chief aim of the school life. A great […]
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Virginia Woolf (1882-1941)
I cling to my tiny philosophy: to hug the present moment. Virginia Woolf, diary entry, 31 January 1940 Virginia Woolf […]
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Har Dayal (1884-1939)
Life is a wonderful privilege. It imposes great duties. It demands the fulfilment of great tasks and the realisation of […]
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Gora (1902-1975)
Godlessness is negative. It merely denies the existence of god. Atheism is positive. It asserts the condition that results from […]
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Girton College, Cambridge
Girton College at the University of Cambridge has educated and employed a host of remarkable humanists and freethinkers, many of […]
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Bishopsgate Institute
Bishopsgate Institute was built ‘for the benefit of the public’ in 1894, intended to provide opportunities for education and recreation […]
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University College London
University College London was founded in 1826 as the University of London; the city’s first university, and a consciously secular […]
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Conway Hall
Conway Hall has effected a transformation. From the day of its opening the life of the Society has been full […]
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Leicester Secular Hall
I might fill columns with tales of the debaters, co-operators, socialists, individualists, critics, artists, scientists, clergy and cranks, who, as […]
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Liverpool Ethical Church
The Liverpool Ethical Society was founded in 1904, and in 1912 Liverpool became home to one of only a handful […]
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Church of Humanity
No creative thinker has so governed… my mind as the French genius who framed the maxim – “Love for principle, […]
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National Secular Society
The National Secular Society is a campaigning organisation, founded in 1866 to champion the principles of secularism and the separation […]
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International Journal of Ethics
The International Journal of Ethics was founded in 1890 by leaders of the worldwide Ethical movement, ‘for the advancement of […]
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Women’s Group of the Ethical Movement
Of everything that presents itself unto thee to consider what the true nature of it is, and to unfold it. […]
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Women’s Freedom League
Dare to be free. Slogan of the Women’s Freedom League The Women’s Freedom League (WFL) was a militant suffrage organisation, […]
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Humanists International
Humanists International was formed in 1952 as the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU): a federation of the American Ethical […]
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Abortion Law Reform Association
The… women on the early ALRA committee were similar in background and outlook. Most of them were active members of […]
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Positivism
Positivism is a philosophical system based on the writings of French thinker Auguste Comte, which flourished from the 1830s onwards. […]
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North London Ethical Society
We desire to attract men and women holding all shades of opinion, but having in common a conviction that morality […]
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West London Ethical Society
The good life… rests for its justification on no external authority, and on no system of supernatural rewards or punishments, […]
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South London Ethical Society
Without denying or affirming a life after death, or reality beyond experience… we can (without injury to our moral life) […]
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Hampstead Ethical Institute
The object of this Society is: To increase the knowledge, the love, and the practice of the right. Its bond […]
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The Ethical Church
The old teaching was that we must worship not truth, beauty and goodness, but their source, and that their source […]
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East London Ethical Society
Not Religion as a Duty, but Duty as a Religion. Felix Adler(A motto of the East London Ethical Society) The […]
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Brighton and Hove Ethical Society
Founded in 1905 by the prolific but largely unremembered writer Richard Dimsdale Stocker, the Brighton and Hove Ethical Society – […]
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Mackenzie Hall
Mackenzie Hall is a community space in the village of Brockweir, Gloucestershire, given by Millicent Mackenzie in memory of her […]
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A.J. Ayer (1910-1989)
In common with other humanists, I believe that the only possible basis for a sound morality is mutual tolerance and […]
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Owen Sheehy-Skeffington (1909-1970)
I am a humanist, a rationalist. My mother said to me, some weeks before she died, that she would die ‘an unrepentant […]
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Jacob Bronowski (1908-1974)
The notion that a man shall judge for himself what he is told, sifting the evidence and weighing the conclusions, […]
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John Hewitt (1907-1987)
I fear their creed as we have always fearedthe lifted hand against unfettered thought. John Hewitt, ‘The Glens’ in Collected […]
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Jennie Lee (1904-1988)
Jennie Lee (also known as Baroness Lee of Asheridge) was a Scottish politician and journalist, known for her upfront orating […]
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Harold John Blackham (1903-2009)
Faith without works is not Christianity, and unbelief without any effort to help shoulder the consequences for mankind is not […]
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Sylvia Scaffardi (1902-2001)
The actress turned campaigner and human rights activist Sylvia Scaffardi was a co-founder of The Council of Civil Liberties, along […]
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Rose Bush (1898-1978)
Rose Bush was a member of the South Place Ethical Society for over 50 years, and a driving force in […]
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Barbara Wootton (1897-1988)
It is in fact a strength, not a weakness, of a secular morality that it must stand upon its own […]
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Fenner Brockway (1888-1988)
I had long put on one side the purist pacifist view that one should have nothing to do with a […]
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Julian Huxley (1887-1975)
What the sciences discover about the natural world and about the origins, nature and destiny of man is the truth […]
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L. Susan Stebbing (1885-1943)
It lies within our power, if we so desire it, to make the familiar world we inhabit more worthy of […]
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E. M. Forster (1879-1970)
Humanism could (better) be honoured by reciting a list of the things one has enjoyed or found interesting, of the […]
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Richard Dimsdale Stocker (1877-1935)
But this much is certain, that, taking the world as we find it, sympathy, plus a modicum of common sense […]
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Teresa Billington-Greig (1876-1964)
I am a feminist, a rebel, and a suffragist – a believer, therefore, in sex-equality and militant action. I desire […]
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Charles Kennedy Scott (1876-1965)
… in broad terms, with our lecturers we attempt to define our intellectual standpoint; with our music we try to […]
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Olga Jacoby (1874-1913)
…life itself offers enough explanation for living; and believing our existence to finish with death, we naturally make the most […]
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G. E. Moore (1873-1958)
The tremendous influence of Moore and his book on us came from the fact that they suddenly removed from our […]
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Bessie Mabbs (1873-1953)
Bessie Mabbs was a teacher, school principal, and active member of the Union of Ethical Societies (now Humanists UK), chairing […]
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Bertrand Russell (1872-1970)
The good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge. Neither love without knowledge, nor knowledge without love […]
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Ernestine Mills (1871-1959)
Ernestine Mills, an enamelist, and her husband Dr. Herbert Henry Mills were both active members of the Ethical movement, and […]
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Lillie Boileau (1869-1930)
Lillie Boileau was a devoted figure within the Ethical movement, and an active part of the fight for women’s suffrage. […]
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Chapman Cohen (1868-1954)
Chapman Cohen was a tireless champion of freethought, and a prolific writer and lecturer for the secularist cause. President of […]
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Gilbert Murray (1866-1957)
But in the more civilised communities, as in ancient Greece, there has always been a minority who, through some speculative […]
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Laurence Housman (1865-1959)
But however little it conforms or tenders allegiance, no life worth having can be isolated from the lives of others. […]
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Gustav Spiller (1864-1940)
The Conscience has eclipsed the Scriptures; Science has destroyed the belief in Divine Interposition; Democracy and Civism have shown men […]
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May Seaton-Tiedeman (1862-1948)
If the basic cause of an unsuccessful marriage is removable, conciliation is the proper procedure. If it is not removable, […]
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Julia Huxley (1862-1908)
Julia Huxley was a feminist and freethinker, who profoundly influenced a generation of girls who attended the school she founded […]
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Zona Vallance (1860-1904)
Conscious morality cannot exist in any being except so far as it can look behind, before, and around; and can […]
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Hilda Caroline Miall-Smith (1860-1943)
Hilda Caroline Miall-Smith was a teacher and activist, a graduate of University College London, and a member of the London […]
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Stanton Coit (1857-1944)
Stanton Coit was a pioneer of the Ethical movement in England and the founder of the West London Ethical Society, […]
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Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)
If after this survey of the nature of illusions and delusions, we turn again to religious doctrines, we may reiterate […]
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Elizabeth Duncan Swann (1855-1914)
Elizabeth Swann was an active and devoted champion of liberal and progressive causes alongside her husband, Liberal MP Charles Swann. […]
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Frederick James Gould (1855-1938)
F.J. Gould was an influential educationist, writer, and humanist, whose tireless work towards secularising education helped to lay the groundwork […]
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Lady Florence Dixie (1855-1905)
Those who, like myself, are in communication with the advanced thought and thinkers throughout the world know that hundreds —nay, […]
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Josephine Gowa (1854-1941)
Josephine Gowa was an active member of the Hampstead Ethical Institute (later Hampstead Humanist Society) for over three decades, many […]
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Mary Gilliland Husband (1854-1929)
The attainment of the greatest possible amount of social happiness I take to be the noblest of human aims; the […]
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Florence Winterbottom (1851-1926)
No one who came in contact with her failed to recognize in her fearlessness, honesty for the sake of honesty […]
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Henry S. Salt (1851-1939)
I felt flattered by the remark of a hostile journalist that I was “a compendium of the cranks,” by which […]
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Felix Adler (1851-1933)
In order to find meaning to one’s life, one must find a meaning in the life of the [human] race. […]
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Ethel Leach (1850-1936)
Ethel Leach was a Liberal councillor, social reformer, justice of the peace, and the first female mayor of Great Yarmouth. […]
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Ruth Homan (1850-1938)
Ruth Homan was an educationist, women’s welfare campaigner, and one of the founding members of the West London Ethical Society […]
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Jane Ellen Harrison (1850-1928)
About the moral problem there is nothing mysterious; it is simply the old, old question of how best to live […]
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George William Foote (1850-1915)
Doubt is the beginning of wisdom. It means caution, independence, honesty and veracity. G. W. Foote George William Foote was […]
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Sophie Bryant (1850-1922)
Sophie Bryant was an Anglo-Irish mathematician, feminist, suffragist, teacher, and promoter of moral education. She played a key role in […]
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Annie Besant (1847-1933)
Women, like men, should try to do the impossible. And when they fail, their failure should be a challenge to […]
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Alice Vickery (1844-1929)
Dr Alice Vickery was a humanist, physician, and devoted champion of women’s reproductive rights. Her tombstone inscription remembers her as […]
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Laura Morgan-Browne (1843-1942)
I have come to feel that the best proof of the subjection and degradation of my sex lies in the […]
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Moncure Conway (1832-1907)
It is not because the believer in rational religion has not clear convictions that he will not shape them into […]
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Leslie Stephen (1832-1904)
Why not agree to differ about the questions which no one denies to be all but insoluble, and become allies […]
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George Jacob Holyoake (1817-1906)
Free thought means fearless thought. It is not deterred by legal penalties, nor by spiritual consequences. Dissent from the Bible […]
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British Society for the Study of Sex Psychology
The British Society for the Study of Sex Psychology was officially formed in April 1914, ‘for the consideration of problems […]
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The Union of Ethical Societies
The Union of Ethical Societies (now Humanists UK) was formed in 1896, joining together existing ethical societies for fellowship and […]
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Emilie Holyoake-Marsh (1861-1953)
Emilie Holyoake-Marsh, daughter of George Jacob Holyoake, was an activist for worker’s rights and women’s suffrage; an advocate of co-operation, […]
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Ruskin School Home (1900-1926)
The Ruskin School Home was founded by socialist writer and teacher [Harry] Bellerby Lowerison (1863–1935) in Norfolk in 1900, following […]
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Harry Snell (1865-1944)
Harry Snell was a socialist politician and campaigner, a devoted advocate of the Ethical Movement and a key figure in […]
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Nellie Freeman (1863-1943)
Nellie Freeman was an indefatigable organiser within the Ethical Union (today’s Humanists UK) for decades of her life. Beginning in […]
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Adela Coit (1863-1932)
Fanny Adela Coit was a suffragist and campaigner of international significance, as well as a central figure in the Ethical […]
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The Humanitarian League (1891-1919)
The Humanitarian League is a Society of thinkers and workers, irrespective of class or creed, who have united for the […]
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First Universal Races Congress
To those who regard the furtherance of International Good Will and Peace as the highest of all human interests, the […]
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Alice Woods (1849-1941)
Alice Woods was an educationist and headteacher; a member of the Hampstead Ethical Institute, and a proponent of moral education. […]
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The Ethical Movement
Not by the Creed but by the Deed. Motto of the Society for Ethical Culture of New York, founded in […]
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South Place Ethical Society
Under its successive names, adopted or given… is traceable a constant endeavour to study carefully, and keep abreast of, the […]
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Rationalist Press Association
The Rationalist Press Association (now the Rationalist Association) had its origins in the London print works of Charles Albert Watts, […]
