"God, if She exists, isn't really a part of my life."

This "great Catholic poet" – you might as well call him the only great Catholic poet – rejected or ignored much of the theology of his church.

Sometimes ironically called "the Christ of Modern Art," his drastic Rationalism pervades all Balzac’s work.

“Christian religion ... has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. ... Religion is based, I think, primarily and mainly upon fear.”

A husband could beat his wife, or sell her, take all her property and her children. Down to the 19th century, women were denied the vote because the law specified only men.

“You have to stand in awe of the all-time champion of false promises and exaggerated claims, religion. I would never want to be a member of a group whose symbol was a guy nailed to two pieces of wood.”

In her biography of her father, Mary Ellin Barrett refers to her father's "agnosticism," and describes him as a "nonbeliever."

“The establishment of a new religion, whose ministers superceded the exercise of reason,” Gibbon wrote, supplanted Athenian wisdom and, “resolved every question by an article of faith, and condemned the infidel or skeptic to eternal flames."

"Neither in my private life nor in my writings, have I ever made a secret of being an out-and-out unbeliever."

“Faith is in its nature unchangeable, stationary; Science is in its nature progressive; and eventually a divergence between them must take place.”