"I was born a heretic," Anthony said. "I always distrust people who know so much about what God wants them to do to their fellows."

"It vexes me when they [clerics] would constrain science by the authority of the Scriptures," wrote Galileo, "and yet do not consider themselves bound to answer reason and experiment."

In a note to Donny and Marie Osmond, Penn wrote, 'There is no god,' and Teller wrote, 'He's right.'"

"I knew Lincoln was an Infidel. I never heard that Lincoln changed his views. Sometimes Lincoln bordered on Atheism," said friend and political manager Colonel James H. Matheny.

In my most extreme fluctuations I have never been an Atheist in the sense of denying the existence of a God. I think that generally ... an Agnostic would be the more correct description of my state of mind.

Lamb was a complete agnostic from 1801, and from 1829 he was no longer even a Unitarian.

Brecht wrote, "The church is a circus for the masses," and believed organized religion had been standing in the way of progress for centuries.

Ruskin never went to church, but he gave away most of his wealth in founding a charity called the Guild of St. George in the 1870s.

Wrote biographer John Forster, who knew Dickens, "He had rejected the Church of England and detested the influence of its bishops in English politics."

"I count religion but a childish toy, and hold there is no sin but ignorance," wrote Marlowe in “The Jew of Malta.”