June suns, you cannot store them To warm the winter’s cold, The lad that hopes for heaven Shall fill his […]
In common with other humanists, I believe that the only possible basis for a sound morality is mutual tolerance and […]
From the outset IAS aimed to have an open approach to prospective adopters irrespective of their race, religion and creed, […]
We can only see a short distance ahead, but we can see plenty there that needs to be done. Alan […]
Dr Alice Vickery was a humanist, physician, and devoted champion of women’s reproductive rights. Her tombstone inscription remembers her as […]
He was a great humanist whose religion lay in loving his fellow men and trying to serve them. These are […]
Women, like men, should try to do the impossible. And when they fail, their failure should be a challenge to […]
Is being rewarded for maintaining certain articles as matters of faith, and being punished, or suffering for opposing them, proper […]
Antony Flew was a British philosopher and was, for much of his life, a renowned atheist and eloquent proponent of […]
Auguste Comte was a French writer, philosopher, and social scientist, whose theory of positivism was a significant influence on the […]
To say that “God moves in mysterious ways” is to put up a smokescreen of mystery behind which fantasy may […]
It is in fact a strength, not a weakness, of a secular morality that it must stand upon its own […]
This Society has for its object the promotion of right conduct on a purely natural and human basis and the […]
The good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge. Neither love without knowledge, nor knowledge without love […]
Bessie Braddock was a trade union activist and politician, who devoted her life to improving the lives of others. She […]
William Pirrie Barbour was a classicist, codebreaker, teacher, and activist. A rationalist and humanist, Barbour championed integrated education in his […]
Bill Bynner was a humanist, socialist, and civil servant. As the editor of South Place Ethical Society‘s Ethical Record wrote […]
We are (of all the synonyms I most prefer to ‘humanist’) freethinkers. We are deprived of nothing. We have lost […]
Atheist Charles Southwell was imprisoned in Bristol Gaol for blasphemous libel in 1842. Southwell had written an article in his […]
If he had ever worshipped at any shrine, it would have been one illumined with the flame of pure intellect. […]
Chapman Cohen was a tireless champion of freethought, and a prolific writer and lecturer for the secularist cause. President of […]
Charles Albert Watts was a lifelong promoter of rationalism, and the founder in 1885 of Watts’s Literary Guide, still published […]
Charles Bradlaugh was a leading freethinker, secularist, and founder of the National Secular Society. His efforts to take his seat […]
The House of Commons refused to allow his affirmation, so Bradlaugh applied to take the oath but was again refused. […]
I cannot pretend to throw the least light on such abstruse problems. The mystery of the beginning of all things […]
Avoiding alike mysticism and shallow denial, he was a true Agnostic, anxious not merely to beat down error, but to […]
The writer, TV and radio personality and social campaigner, Claire Rayner, best known for her agony aunt columns, spent most […]
I have adhered to such of the older traditions as I find adequate for my most lawless and revolutionary passions […]
In all her work for the humanist movement, Constance Dowman said little and did much… She was one of the […]
…the only universal truths which exist are the fundamental laws of the mind. Philosophy, then, which is the science of […]
Without any great effort of thought, I believe that I could, in an instant, propose other systems of cosmogony, which […]
I see this kind of love – the empathy that should be common to all living creatures – rather than […]
I lost religion in a breath; Heaven fled from me on the wings of Reason… Doris Lessing, Under My Skin: […]
Isn’t it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the […]
Because no one will believe without a splash from a fontTheir baby will howl in eternal cold, or fire,And no […]
… purely human and natural ethics, and not theology, was the source of this pioneer woman’s enthusiasm for justice, even […]
Oh what a tissue of inconsistencies are the dogmas in which we have been reared! Emma Martin, God’s Gifts and […]
Emancipation from every kind of bondage is my principle. I go for the recognition of human rights, without distinction of […]
I wish to live because life has within it that which is good, that which is beautiful, and that which […]
I have devoted my time and fortune to laying the foundation of a society where affection shall form the only […]
Francis Crick discovered the structure of DNA, the biological molecule of hereditary information, and cracked the genetic code by which […]
A distinctively Edwardian rationalist radical, he himself agreed that he was a crank – ‘a small instrument that makes revolutions’. […]
F.J. Gould was an influential educationist, writer, and humanist, whose tireless work towards secularising education helped to lay the groundwork […]
This article appeared in The Secular Chronicle (Vol. V, No. 1), 2 January 1876. It marked the first issue edited […]
The principles of humanism are positive and exacting commitments. People do not become Humanists merely on rejecting supernatural beliefs. But […]
With all the pretensions of spiritualists… No great truth containing a benefit to humanity has ever reached us; no addition […]
What primarily unites Humanists is not a set of propositions to be believed but moral values to be freely chosen… […]
We hold that only by making happiness for those around us, and by endeavoring, individually, to make the world a […]
The reward of a useful and virtuous life is the conviction that our memory will be cherished by those who […]
‘Being Rational About Being Gay’ was a talk given by activist Antony Grey (Anthony Edgar Gartside Wright) for the Gay […]
Humanism is a philosophy of life based on a concern for humanity rather than a belief in god. Humanists believe […]
Truth needs the friendly grip of earnest men and women of every class. There is no distinction where it dwells. […]
The tremendous influence of Moore and his book on us came from the fact that they suddenly removed from our […]
Free thought means fearless thought. It is not deterred by legal penalties, nor by spiritual consequences. Dissent from the Bible […]
I don’t understand people panicking about death. It’s inevitable. I’m an atheist; you’d think it would make it worse, but […]
You can always appeal to common decency, which the vast majority of people believe in without the need to tie […]
Doubt is the beginning of wisdom. It means caution, independence, honesty and veracity. G. W. Foote George William Foote was […]
Godlessness is negative. It merely denies the existence of god. Atheism is positive. It asserts the condition that results from […]
Mr. Fysher was in many respects a remarkable man. His interests were wide, and whatever he took up he carried […]
Harford Montgomery Hyde was a Belfast-born barrister, politician, author, and humanist, who championed humane legal reforms and progressive social attitudes. […]
Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington was an activist, feminist, and humanist, who founded the Irish Women’s Franchise League, and was described by the […]
Faith without works is not Christianity, and unbelief without any effort to help shoulder the consequences for mankind is not […]
Harriet Law was a secularist and speaker, who also promoted women’s rights and socialist ideals. During the 1870s, Law’s house […]
What an emancipation it is, — to have escaped from the little enclosure of dogma, and to stand, — far […]
Humanism is less concerned with what to believe than with how to live. The meaning it gives to life lies […]
I have ever considered that the only religion useful to man consists exclusively of the practice of morality, and in […]
It is in service to others, it is as members of the community, that our existence lies. Hermann Bondi, Humanism […]
I was not, and was conceived. I loved and did a little work. I am not and grieve not. Epitaph […]
The Humanist Broadcasting Council was established in 1959, in consultation with the BBC, to advocate for the inclusion of humanist […]
While there is much that we do not know, humans are responsible for what we are or will become. No […]
When we stand up for freedom of conscience, for the rights of the individual, for the rational approach and against […]
While much of the Humanist Heritage website looks back to the earlier years of the organised humanist movement, recent decades […]
When we are asked to believe that nothing but a supernatural ideal can inspire and sustain a life-time of complete […]
The standing stones represent the letter punches which he cut to make his type, and the word virgil was Baskerville’s […]
We must grow out of the crude and unreal ideas of immortality and content ourselves with the only kind of […]
Belfast-born Jack McDowell was an activist, educator, politician, and atheist, whose humanism was evident in a lifetime of work for […]
The time has arrived for us humans to stop leaning on ideas for a creator god; we should get down […]
About the moral problem there is nothing mysterious; it is simply the old, old question of how best to live […]
Humanism is a way to live, to give meaning to life and to find an understanding of our place in […]
We can’t help the universe, but at least we can do something to help ourselves. Can’t we? John Boyd, Across […]
I think I was born a humanist. John D. Stewart, The Honest Ulsterman, May 1968 John D. Stewart was a […]
My chosen ground Inscription on the John Hewitt Cairn John Harold Hewitt (1907-1987) was the most significant Ulster poet to […]
In the beginning natural philosophers tried to understand the world around them. Trying to do that they hit upon the […]
I will call no being good, who is not what I mean when I apply that epithet to my fellow-creatures; […]
It is not to the point to say that the views of Lucretius and Bruno, of Darwin and Spencer, may […]
Purity of life, sincerity of action, obedience to law, love of our fellow creatures, all those qualities which ennoble life […]
Can there be a more important human condition than dignity? Without it, we are bitter, downtrodden, unheard, humiliated, embarrassed and […]
Kensal Green, opened in 1833, was London’s first commercial cemetery, and the originator of the city’s ‘Magnificent Seven’. These suburban […]
For earth is not as though thou ne’er hadst been. Constance Naden, ‘The Pantheist’s Song of Immortality’ (1881) Birmingham’s Key […]
I believe in the supreme virtue of exploring. I believe in finding out. Even if I don’t succeed, I still […]
Harriet Martineau described her escape to atheism like this: “I lingered long on the stages of speculation and taste, but […]
Those who, like myself, are in communication with the advanced thought and thinkers throughout the world know that hundreds —nay, […]
I might fill columns with tales of the debaters, co-operators, socialists, individualists, critics, artists, scientists, clergy and cranks, who, as […]
It has been suggested that matter is capable of destruction, that every atom is destined to be dissolved away in […]
Ludovic Kennedy was a writer, journalist, and broadcaster, known for his investigations into miscarriages of justice. A human rights campaigner, he […]
The realisation of the possibility of a secular rational morality opens up a new perspective before the modern world… It […]
Margaret Chappellsmith was a devotee of the socialist and secularist ideas of Robert Owen, becoming one of the Owenite movement’s […]
With these basic [humanist] beliefs there go commonly two corollaries. First, that virtue is a matter of promoting human well-being, […]
Mary Sheepshanks was a humanist who saw her feminist, pacifist, and cosmopolitan beliefs as being natural expressions of her humanist […]
I will never voluntarily obey any law which is an outrage on human reason. Matilda Roalfe Matilda Roalfe was an […]
Hath man no second life? Pitch this one high! Sits there no judge in Heaven our sin to see? More […]
A wide-ranging Humanism will always seek to extend to more and more people, through education and opportunity, the enrichment of […]
The National Secular Society is a campaigning organisation, founded in 1866 to champion the principles of secularism and the separation […]
Humanism involves not just the deletion of God from moral thought, but the development of humanity on a rational and […]
…life itself offers enough explanation for living; and believing our existence to finish with death, we naturally make the most […]
[Ouida’s] exaggerated enthusiasms made readers smile, but they also made them think. It would be difficult to overstate the effect […]
I am a humanist, a rationalist. My mother said to me, some weeks before she died, that she would die ‘an unrepentant […]
Socialism emerged, in the early decades of the nineteenth century, as a humanist ideal of universal emancipation – the ideal […]
Percy Bysshe Shelley was a major poet of the Romantic period, and remains one of England’s best loved and most […]
Humanists UK began as the Union of Ethical Societies in 1896, becoming the Ethical Union in 1920, the British Humanist […]
…a slowly growing public opinion in favour of arbitration as the alternative to war… is not in consequence of any […]
The Rationalist Press Association (now the Rationalist Association) had its origins in the London print works of Charles Albert Watts, […]
As well as being home to Conway Hall and its humanist library, Red Lion Square contains statues of two prominent […]
I have no view but public good; certainly no desire to injure any one, but a passionate desire to do […]
Robert Owen was a utopian socialist, philanthropist, and reformer, whose own religious scepticism fostered his desire for a secular society, […]
The obituary reproduced below was written by George Broadhead, and originally appeared in a 1997 issue of The Gay Humanist […]
I agree that faith is essential to success in life (success of any sort) but I do not accept your […]
Rose Bush was a member of the South Place Ethical Society for over 50 years, and a driving force in […]
Man for man in larger sense does what heaven fails to do. Sara A. Underwood, quoted by Rufus K. Noyes […]
Sarah Flower Adams was a writer, radical, and major influence on the religious thinking of William Johnson Fox at South […]
If after this survey of the nature of illusions and delusions, we turn again to religious doctrines, we may reiterate […]
I have no desire… to bring the religion or the laws of this country into contempt, although I am a […]
Against the militarist totalitarian state, I have striven. For the freedom of the human spirit to develop under the kindly […]
There is no hope but us. There is no mercy but us. There is no justice. There is just us… […]
The gist of heresy is free personal choice in act, and specially in thought – the rejection of traditional faiths […]
Not by the Creed but by the Deed. Motto of the Society for Ethical Culture of New York, founded in […]
The Progressive League was an organisation dedicated to the advancement of scientific humanism, founded by author H.G. Wells and philosopher […]
The object of Secularism is the promotion of human happiness in this world… [The Secularist] believes the surest way of […]
It is a principle innate and co-natural to every man to have an insatiable inclination to the truth and to […]
Thomas Henry Huxley was a man of science, a biologist, and educator. He helped to transform scientific study into a […]
The basic human value is freedom, which means the right of a human being to live a human life. V.M. […]
I cling to my tiny philosophy: to hug the present moment. Virginia Woolf, diary entry, 31 January 1940 Virginia Woolf […]
I remain an agnostic, and the practical outcome of agnosticism is that you act as though God did not exist. […]
Our interest, it seems to me, lies with so much of the past as may serve to guide our actions […]