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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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Adam Gowans Whyte (1875–1950)
I have often enough been burdened, disgusted, and outraged with life, but never have I been bored with it. There […]
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Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)
Aldous Huxley was never just a cynic or a mystic, or for that matter just a writer. He was a […]
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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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Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909)
No poet since Shelley sings more loftily or with more fiery passion or with finer thought than Swinburne when he […]
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Amber Blanco White (1887–1981)
Many human beings are sensible and friendly and kind; able to combine together to carry out wise policies. It is […]
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Angus Wilson (1913–1991)
I don’t think it’s the novelist’s job to give answers. He’s only concerned with exposing the human situation… and I […]
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Aphra Behn (1640-1689)
…that perfect Tranquility of Life, which is no where to be found, but in retreat, a faithful Friend and a […]
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Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution
…for the Promotion and Advancement of Science, Literature and Art Trust deed of the Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institute […]
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Bet Cherrington (1912–1998)
The Humanist virtues, as indicated in Barbara Smoker’s What’s this Humanism (1973), are intellectual integrity, tolerance, breadth of sympathy and […]
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Books Which Made Me a Rationalist
Under the above heading we shall, during the forthcoming months, publish a series of articles from well-known Rationalist authors which […]
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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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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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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 E. Hooper
Rational Humanism is an ethical outlook, which seeks to be in accord with a scientific survey of man’s world. It […]
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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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Charles Turner Gorham (1856–1933)
We have the faculties for gaining knowledge; and Rationalism will always maintain that we are at liberty to use them […]
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Christopher Marlowe (1564–1593)
I count religion but a childish toy,And hold there is no sin but ignorance. Christopher Marlowe, The Jew of Malta, […]
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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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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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Constance Naden (1858-1889)
…the only universal truths which exist are the fundamental laws of the mind. Philosophy, then, which is the science of […]
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David Oppenheimer (1914–1991)
In my experience he was the kindest of men, far too modest about his own contributions and always prepared to […]
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David Williams (1738-1816)
I was educated among the Saints; and I now live, thank God, among Sinners. David Williams, Essays on Public Worship […]
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Derek Lennard (1952–2023)
Derek Lennard was a longtime member and former chair of LGBT Humanists—then known as the Gay and Lesbian Humanist Group […]
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Diana Wynne Jones (1934–2011)
I settled my religious muddles by deciding that I had better be an atheist. Diana Wynne Jones in Something About […]
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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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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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Douglas Adams (1952–2001)
Isn’t it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the […]
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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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Edith Durham (1863–1944)
Mary Edith Durham was a writer, artist, and anthropologist, who became well known for her work on Albania. She was […]
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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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Edward Blishen (1920–1996)
At this nervous moment… when we have uncertainties about almost everything, it’s particularly necessary that we pool our determination, so […]
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Edward Clodd (1840–1930)
He was one of the few of whom it can be said that he had a gift for friendship… There […]
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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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Eliza Flower (1803-1846)
Eliza Flower was a composer, a radical, and a significant influence on William Johnson Fox and the progressive values of […]
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Ellen Dana Conway (1833-1897)
Her beautiful life, her truth, her unwearied charities, proceeded from her own heart. They were not inspired by any thought […]
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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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Ephraim Chambers (1680-1740)
… a man who thinks himself bound to all offices of Humanity. Ephraim Chambers, self-composed epitaph Ephraim Chambers was an […]
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Erasmus Darwin (1731–1802)
Would it be too bold to imagine, that in the great length of time, since the earth began to exist, […]
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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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First European performance of A Raisin in the Sun (1959)
I wish to live because life has within it that which is good, that which is beautiful, and that which […]
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Ford Madox Brown (1821-1893)
A cheerful and reverent Agnostic, whose whole life was one of unselfishness and devotion to lofty aims, who was tolerant […]
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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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Frederick C. C. Watts (1896-1953)
The educative work and the profound enlightenment resulting from the publication of the cheap RPA reprints and the Thinker’s Library […]
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From the archives: Charles Kennedy Scott 1876–1965
As well as being one of the most distinguished musicians of his time, he was, like Sir Hubert Parry before […]
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From the archives: George Eliot in Heroines of Freethought
It is with a feeling of considerable deprecating delicacy that I venture to write of this woman, whom I so […]
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From the archives: Marjorie Bowen’s toast to the Rationalist Press Association (1939)
Toast by Marjorie Bowen at the Fortieth Annual Dinner and Reunion of the Rationalist Press Association, at the Trocadero Restaurant, […]
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From the archives: Separate Development?
We’re part of society, part of the world whether we or society like it or not, and we have to […]
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From the archives: The Great Human Detective Story
Humanism is a philosophy of life based on a concern for humanity rather than a belief in god. Humanists believe […]
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From the archives: The Rationalist Press Association (1900)
From the Agnostic Annual, 1900, edited by Charles A. Watts (founder of the Rationalist Press Association). THE RATIONALIST PRESS ASSOCIATION, […]
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From the archives: Wider Horizons
I suggest that the assembly we really want is an act of celebration, rather than worship. There is value in […]
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George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
The death of Shaw is to progressive people of the twentieth century what the death of Voltaire must have been […]
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George Eliot (1819-1880)
What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult for each other? George Eliot, Middlemarch […]
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George Melly (1926-2007)
I don’t understand people panicking about death. It’s inevitable. I’m an atheist; you’d think it would make it worse, but […]
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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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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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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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Harold Pinter (1930-2008)
Good writing excites me, and makes life worth living. Harold Pinter Harold Pinter was one of the 20th century’s most […]
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Harriet Martineau (1802-1876)
What an emancipation it is, — to have escaped from the little enclosure of dogma, and to stand, — far […]
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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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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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Henrik Ibsen (1828–1906)
One thing I would earnestly maintain; Ibsen comes home to us. His problems are real problems and are ours. If […]
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Humanist Broadcasting Council
The Humanist Broadcasting Council was established in 1959, in consultation with the BBC, to advocate for the inclusion of humanist […]
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Iain Banks (1954–2013)
What Iain brought to his writing was himself. He brought a wonderful combination of the dark and the light side of life, […]
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Industry and Genius
The standing stones represent the letter punches which he cut to make his type, and the word virgil was Baskerville’s […]
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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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Iris Murdoch (1919–1999)
I don’t believe in God, but I think morality is fundamental to human life. Iris Murdoch in the Literary Review, […]
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J.M. Robertson (1856–1933)
Our age, with all its faults, is surely as capable of a sane ideal as any that went before; and […]
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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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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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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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James Thomson (1834–1882)
Thomson resolved to speak for all who were unhappy. He would be the poet of the sad, the laureate of […]
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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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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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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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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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John Curry (1949–1994)
John Curry was an English figure skater celebrated for revolutionising the sport by combining athleticism with balletic artistry. Openly gay […]
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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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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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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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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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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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John Tyndall’s Belfast Address (1874)
It is not to the point to say that the views of Lucretius and Bruno, of Darwin and Spencer, may […]
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Julia Stephen (1846-1895)
Purity of life, sincerity of action, obedience to law, love of our fellow creatures, all those qualities which ennoble life […]
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Justin Keating (1930–2009)
One might say that since retirement I have been reworking my paradigm. In that reworking I have reached conclusions, but […]
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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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Kelmscott House
Not to be confused with Kelmscott Manor, Kelmscott House was the London home of designer and socialist William Morris from […]
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Kelmscott Manor
Kelmscott Manor was the country home of the writer, designer, and socialist William Morris from 1871 until his death in […]
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Key Hill Cemetery
For earth is not as though thou ne’er hadst been. Constance Naden, ‘The Pantheist’s Song of Immortality’ (1881) Birmingham’s Key […]
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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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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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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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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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Leonard Ainsbury (1943–2006)
There will never be a point where we can sit back and say we have discovered everything. Our banner will […]
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Lewis Grassic Gibbon (1901–1935)
One sees rise ultimately… in place of Religion—Nothing… one does not seek to replace a fever by an attack of […]
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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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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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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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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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Lucretius (99-55 BCE)
Titus Lucretius Carus was a Roman poet contemporary of Julius Caesar. Little is known of him apart from his name […]
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Ludovic Kennedy (1919-2009)
Ludovic Kennedy was a writer, journalist, and broadcaster, known for his investigations into miscarriages of justice. A human rights campaigner, he […]
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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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Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle (1623–1673)
I had rather die in the adventure of noble achievements, than live in obscure and sluggish security Spoken by the […]
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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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Marjorie Bowen (1885–1952)
To accept life fully seems to me the hallmark of the fine spirit. I think that it is possible for […]
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Mary Raftery (1957–2012)
The hard anger she felt at the cruelty she encountered was always rooted in a deep tenderness for vulnerable humanity. […]
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Mary Shelley (1797–1851)
The daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin, and the wife of Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary Shelley was raised without […]
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Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–1797)
And how can woman be expected to co-operate unless she knows why she ought to be virtuous? Unless freedom strengthens […]
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Matthew Arnold (1822-1888)
Hath man no second life? Pitch this one high! Sits there no judge in Heaven our sin to see? More […]
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Maureen Duffy (1933–2026)
As war is far too important to be left to the generals, so morality is far too important to be […]
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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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May Keating (1895–1965)
[I] feel extraordinarily proud and extraordinarily lucky to be the child of a woman who from her early twenties was […]
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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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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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Naomi Mitchison (1897–1999)
Good will, that curious product of consciousness, of leisure and energy to spare and share. That thing we put out […]
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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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Olaf Stapledon (1886–1950)
We must face the fact that, though the free intelligence and the spirit of community are at once the goal […]
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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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Pamela O’Malley (1929–2006)
At that time, she appeared to me the way Gonne appears in Yeats’s poem, ‘No Second Troy’, where he describes […]
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Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)
Percy Bysshe Shelley was a major poet of the Romantic period, and remains one of England’s best loved and most […]
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Percy Vaughan (1879–1917)
To know him added a zest to existence, and was rich compensation for much that depresses the idealist. Percy Vaughan […]
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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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Ralph Vaughan Williams 1872-1958
I am myself a musician, and I believe that all the arts, and especially music, are necessary to a full […]
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Rationalist Press Association
The Rationalist Press Association (later known as simply the Rationalist Association) had its origins in the London print works of […]
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Raymond Firth (1901–2002)
Though only some anthropologists are humanists, my own anthropological studies confirmed my review of religion as a human art, not […]
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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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Richard Barnfield (1574–1620)
Man’s life is well comparèd to a feast,Furnished with choice of all variety;To it comes Time; and as a bidden […]
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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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Rupert Brooke (1887–1915)
Rupert Brooke’s 1914 sonnets made him a national symbol of patriotic sacrifice, but the man behind the legend was a sceptic and a socialist, at home among the freethinkers of pre-war Cambridge, who left religion behind before he left school and never returned to it.
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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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Sarah Fuller Flower Adams (1805-1848)
Sarah Flower Adams was a writer, radical, and major influence on the religious thinking of William Johnson Fox at South […]
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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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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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Ted Willis (1914-1992)
I have a strong faith and I love mankind. I do not believe in God but I believe in good. […]
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Terry Pratchett (1948–2015)
There is no hope but us. There is no mercy but us. There is no justice. There is just us… […]
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The Athenæum
The Athenæum is a London club founded in 1824, around the pursuit of science and literature. Its reputation as ‘the […]
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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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The first humanist public funeral
He was the people’s First Minister, and this is a people’s ceremony. He wouldn’t want heavy mourning. This is a […]
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The Open University
The Open University was founded in 1969 with the ambition of providing access to higher education for people who had […]
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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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The Rosehill Circle
Living in a house beautifully situated on the outskirts of Coventry, they used to spend their lives in philosophical speculations, […]
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The School of Night
O paradox! Black is the badge of hell,The hue of dungeons, and the school of night… William Shakespeare, Love’s Labours […]
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Theodore Besterman (1904–1976)
Theodore Besterman… was one of the most remarkable of the long line of remarkable people who have given their support […]
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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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Thomas Kyd (1558–1594)
Thus must we toil in other men’s extremes,That know not how to remedy our own. Thomas Kyd, The Spanish Tragedy, […]
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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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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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Voltaire (1694–1778)
What is tolerance? It is the consequence of humanity. We are all formed of frailty and error; let us pardon […]
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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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William Godwin (1756–1836)
We are members of a community. We are indissolubly connected with the society of our fellowmen. We have duties. William […]
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William Johnson Fox (1786-1864)
William Johnson Fox was an orator, writer, politician, and first minister of South Place Chapel (now Conway Hall) from 1824 […]
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William Morris (1834-1896)
Fellowship is heaven, and lack of fellowship is hell. William Morris, A Dream of John Ball (1888) Painter, textile designer, artist, […]
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William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
…for Shakespeare, in the matter of religion, the choice lay between Christianity and nothing. He chose nothing; he chose to […]
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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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Young People’s Group of the Ethical Union
To provide Young People with opportunities for the discussion of religious, political, educational, professional, moral, personal, and social problems… To […]
