Adam Duff O’Toole (Adam Dubh Ó Tuathail) was a reputed heretic, who was burned at the stake for his denials […]
From the outset IAS aimed to have an open approach to prospective adopters irrespective of their race, religion and creed, […]
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 […]
Telegraph House stood on the West Sussex Downs, very near to the highest point called Beacon Hill… It stood out […]
The good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge. Neither love without knowledge, nor knowledge without love […]
In the absence of a better—the palladium of what liberty we have… the birthplace of mind, and the focus of […]
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. […]
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. […]
Avoiding alike mysticism and shallow denial, he was a true Agnostic, anxious not merely to beat down error, but to […]
To all those who have established and who are maintaining the right to refuse to kill. Their foresight and courage […]
Conway Hall has effected a transformation. From the day of its opening the life of the Society has been full […]
David Pollock was a towering figure in the humanist movement. A longtime member, activist, trustee, and former Chair, he was […]
I was educated among the Saints; and I now live, thank God, among Sinners. David Williams, Essays on Public Worship […]
It is necessary to the happiness of man that he be mentally faithful to himself. Infidelity does not consist in […]
“Yet, upon the whole, the History of the Decline and Fall seems to have struck root, both at home and […]
Elhanan Winchester was the first minister of the dissenting congregation that eventually became the humanist South Place Ethical Society in […]
Eliza Flower was a composer, a radical, and a significant influence on William Johnson Fox and the progressive values of […]
Her beautiful life, her truth, her unwearied charities, proceeded from her own heart. They were not inspired by any thought […]
… a man who thinks himself bound to all offices of Humanity. Ephraim Chambers, self-composed epitaph Ephraim Chambers was an […]
Emancipation from every kind of bondage is my principle. I go for the recognition of human rights, without distinction of […]
In order to find meaning to one’s life, one must find a meaning in the life of the [human] race. […]
This conference is resolved to strive for the achievement of peace, justice and tolerance in Ireland, and holds that outmoded […]
No one who came in contact with her failed to recognize in her fearlessness, honesty for the sake of honesty […]
I have devoted my time and fortune to laying the foundation of a society where affection shall form the only […]
F.J. Gould was an influential educationist, writer, and humanist, whose tireless work towards secularising education helped to lay the groundwork […]
Much needs changing in the world of today, and humanists will be found in large numbers in the ranks of […]
The principles of humanism are positive and exacting commitments. People do not become Humanists merely on rejecting supernatural beliefs. But […]
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 […]
It is with a feeling of considerable deprecating delicacy that I venture to write of this woman, whom I so […]
On 11 November 1849, at the Literary and Scientific Institution, 23 John Street (now Whitfield Street), London, George Jacob Holyoake […]
‘Separate Development? Out of the closet, into the ghetto’ was a talk given by writer and activist Maureen Duffy on […]
Truth needs the friendly grip of earnest men and women of every class. There is no distinction where it dwells. […]
I think that one of the most hopeful signs at the present day, and one for which this Movement can […]
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 […]
But in the more civilised communities, as in ancient Greece, there has always been a minority who, through some speculative […]
Glasnevin Cemetery is a nondenominational cemetery in Ireland, first opened in 1832. The brainchild of Catholic rights leader Daniel O’Connell, […]
Godlessness is negative. It merely denies the existence of god. Atheism is positive. It asserts the condition that results from […]
The Conscience has eclipsed the Scriptures; Science has destroyed the belief in Divine Interposition; Democracy and Civism have shown men […]
Harriet Law was a secularist and speaker, who also promoted women’s rights and socialist ideals. During the 1870s, Law’s house […]
I have ever considered that the only religion useful to man consists exclusively of the practice of morality, and in […]
I felt flattered by the remark of a hostile journalist that I was “a compendium of the cranks,” by which […]
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 […]
People have always looked for ways to mark significant events in their lives, and though many ceremonies have often been […]
Humanists International was formed in 1952 as the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU): a federation of the American Ethical […]
While much of the Humanist Heritage website looks back to the earlier years of the organised humanist movement, recent decades […]
The standing stones represent the letter punches which he cut to make his type, and the word virgil was Baskerville’s […]
The big problem of today is how shall we adjust these tremendous new forces so that they can be harnessed […]
I think I was born a humanist. John D. Stewart, The Honest Ulsterman, May 1968 John D. Stewart was a […]
Virtue alone is enough to live happily and brings its own reward. John Toland, Pantheisticon (1720) John Toland was an […]
All religious theories, schemes and systems, which embrace notions of cosmogony, or which otherwise reach into the domain of science, […]
It is not to the point to say that the views of Lucretius and Bruno, of Darwin and Spencer, may […]
Julia Huxley was a feminist and freethinker, who profoundly influenced a generation of girls who attended the school she founded […]
Purity of life, sincerity of action, obedience to law, love of our fellow creatures, all those qualities which ennoble life […]
Kensal Green, opened in 1833, was London’s first commercial cemetery, and the originator of the city’s ‘Magnificent Seven’. These suburban […]
I believe in the supreme virtue of exploring. I believe in finding out. Even if I don’t succeed, I still […]
It lies within our power, if we so desire it, to make the familiar world we inhabit more worthy of […]
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 […]
Why not agree to differ about the questions which no one denies to be all but insoluble, and become allies […]
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, […]
And how can woman be expected to co-operate unless she knows why she ought to be virtuous? Unless freedom strengthens […]
I will never voluntarily obey any law which is an outrage on human reason. Matilda Roalfe Matilda Roalfe was an […]
It is not because the believer in rational religion has not clear convictions that he will not shape them into […]
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 […]
A brief history of humanism and secularism in Northern Ireland Organised humanism began in Northern Ireland in the 19th century, […]
…life itself offers enough explanation for living; and believing our existence to finish with death, we naturally make the most […]
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 […]
Pelagius lived between the fourth and fifth centuries, and advocated a heretical Christianity that emphasised free will and humanity’s capacity […]
I have been the more bold in exposing my opinion because I believe it to be the dictates of truth […]
On Woburn Walk is a plaque to George Jacob Holyoake (1817-1906), a writer, lecturer, and promoter of the Cooperative movement, […]
Prior’s Field School was founded in 1902 by Julia Arnold Huxley. Born in 1862, Julia grew up in an intellectual […]
I have no view but public good; certainly no desire to injure any one, but a passionate desire to do […]
Richard Congreve was a devoted follower of Auguste Comte, whose positivist philosophies and ‘Religion of Humanity’ inspired Congreve to open […]
There is no one who will deny the value and importance of truth, but how is it to be ascertained, […]
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 […]
Under its successive names, adopted or given… is traceable a constant endeavour to study carefully, and keep abreast of, the […]
Stanton Coit was a pioneer of the Ethical movement in England and the founder of the West London Ethical Society, […]
I hold that a writer should not in any circumstances or for any cause surrender his duty to criticise and […]
I have no desire… to bring the religion or the laws of this country into contempt, although I am a […]
I am a feminist, a rebel, and a suffragist – a believer, therefore, in sex-equality and militant action. I desire […]
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 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 […]
And in these four things, opinion of ghosts, ignorance of second causes, devotion towards what men fear, and taking of […]
I believe in the equality of man; and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy and […]
I think that believing in the brotherhood of man is not just a matter of signing these letters, it is […]
The Universities Tests Act, which ended religious discrimination in admissions and employment at the universities of Oxford, Cambridge, and Durham […]
University College London was founded in 1826 as the University of London; the city’s first university, and a consciously secular […]
Wales has long been a nation of nonconformists, with a history of challenging the power and influence of the established […]
William Johnson Fox was an orator, writer, politician, and first minister of South Place Chapel (now Conway Hall) from 1824 […]
Our interest, it seems to me, lies with so much of the past as may serve to guide our actions […]
William of Ockham was the fourteenth century’s most influential philosopher: a key thinker of the Middle Ages and an early […]
Conscious morality cannot exist in any being except so far as it can look behind, before, and around; and can […]