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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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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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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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Anthony Collins (1676-1729)
Is being rewarded for maintaining certain articles as matters of faith, and being punished, or suffering for opposing them, proper […]
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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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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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Auguste Comte (1798-1857)
Auguste Comte was a French writer, philosopher, and social scientist, whose theory of positivism was a significant influence on the […]
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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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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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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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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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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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Cambridge Ethical Society
The Cambridge Ethical Society was established in 1888, inspired by the London Ethical Society (formed two years earlier). It aimed […]
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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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Chrysippus (c. 280-207 BCE)
Chrysippus (or Chrysippos) of Soli was a Greek Stoic philosopher. Although Chrysippus believed in fate, divination, and gods, he believed […]
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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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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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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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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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David Hume (1711-1776)
Without any great effort of thought, I believe that I could, in an instant, propose other systems of cosmogony, which […]
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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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Deism
It is necessary to the happiness of man that he be mentally faithful to himself. Infidelity does not consist in […]
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Democritus (c. 460-370 BCE)
Everywhere man blames nature and fate yet his fate is mostly but the echo of his character and passion, his […]
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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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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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Edward Gibbon (1737–1794)
“Yet, upon the whole, the History of the Decline and Fall seems to have struck root, both at home and […]
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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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Epictetus (c. 55-135 CE)
For I am not everlasting, but a human being, a part of the whole as an hour is a part […]
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Epicurus (341-270 BCE)
There is nothing to fear from Gods, nothing awaiting us in death; good can be obtained, evil fortune can be […]
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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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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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From the archives: ‘What’s This Humanism?’
The principles of humanism are positive and exacting commitments. People do not become Humanists merely on rejecting supernatural beliefs. But […]
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From the archives: Man’s Alleged Spiritual Nature
With all the pretensions of spiritualists… No great truth containing a benefit to humanity has ever reached us; no addition […]
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From the archives: The Humanist Alternative
What primarily unites Humanists is not a set of propositions to be believed but moral values to be freely chosen… […]
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From the archives: Why Women Should be Secularists
We hold that only by making happiness for those around us, and by endeavoring, individually, to make the world a […]
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From the archives: Being Rational About Being Gay
‘Being Rational About Being Gay’ was a talk given by activist Antony Grey (Anthony Edgar Gartside Wright) for the Gay […]
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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: 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: 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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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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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 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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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Herbert Spencer (1820-1903)
No one can be perfectly free till all are free; no one can be perfectly moral till all are moral; […]
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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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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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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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Humanist Manifesto II (1973)
While there is much that we do not know, humans are responsible for what we are or will become. No […]
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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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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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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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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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Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832)
It is impossible that Theology can throw any light upon either morality or jurisprudence. Jeremy Bentham Philosopher and jurist Jeremy […]
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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 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 Stuart Mill (1806-1873)
I will call no being good, who is not what I mean when I apply that epithet to my fellow-creatures; […]
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John Toland (1670-1722)
Virtue alone is enough to live happily and brings its own reward. John Toland, Pantheisticon (1720) John Toland was an […]
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Josiah Gimson (1818-1883)
Josiah Gimson was the most prosperous of the 19th century secularists in Leicester, and the main force behind the building […]
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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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London Ethical Society
The London Ethical Society was the UK’s first, founded in 1886 to pursue ‘a rational conception of human good’: establishing […]
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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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Pelagius (c. 354-418)
Pelagius lived between the fourth and fifth centuries, and advocated a heretical Christianity that emphasised free will and humanity’s capacity […]
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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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Peter Annet (1693-1769)
I have been the more bold in exposing my opinion because I believe it to be the dictates of truth […]
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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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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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Rammohun Roy (1772-1833)
Indian social and religious reformer Rammohun Roy is sometimes referred to as the ‘father of modern India’: a progressive thinker, […]
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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, […]
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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 Congreve (1818-1899)
Richard Congreve was a devoted follower of Auguste Comte, whose positivist philosophies and ‘Religion of Humanity’ inspired Congreve to open […]
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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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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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Robert Owen (1771-1858)
Robert Owen was a utopian socialist, philanthropist, and reformer, whose own religious scepticism fostered his desire for a secular society, […]
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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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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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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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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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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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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 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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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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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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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 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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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 Henry Huxley (1825-1895)
Thomas Henry Huxley was a man of science, a biologist, and educator. He helped to transform scientific study into a […]
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Thomas Hill Green (1836-1882)
Thomas Hill Green was a philosopher, educator, and a Liberal, whose idealist philosophy (with its practical implications) was a significant […]
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Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679)
And in these four things, opinion of ghosts, ignorance of second causes, devotion towards what men fear, and taking of […]
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Towards an Open Society
I think that believing in the brotherhood of man is not just a matter of signing these letters, it is […]
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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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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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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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William Kingdon Clifford (1845-1879)
Our interest, it seems to me, lies with so much of the past as may serve to guide our actions […]
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William of Ockham (c.1287-1347)
William of Ockham was the fourteenth century’s most influential philosopher: a key thinker of the Middle Ages and an early […]
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William Thompson (1775-1833)
All moral and political wisdom should tend mainly to this, the just distribution of the physical means of happiness. William […]
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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. […]
