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.

Sinclair Lewis said, "It is, I think, an error to believe that there is any need of religion to make life seem worth living."

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.”

“But my doubt would not be overcome,” wrote Brandes. “Kierkegaard had declared that it was only to the consciousness of sin that Christianity was not horror or madness. For me it was sometimes both.”

“I do not see what good it does to fulminate against the English tyranny,” said Joyce, “while the Roman tyranny occupies the palace of the soul.”

"Religion," Rand noted, "is the first enemy of the ability to think. ...yet before they learn to think [men] are discouraged by being ordered to take things on faith. Faith is the worst curse of mankind."

Langston Hughes "sought to counter, as best he could, his almost ineradicable reputation as an atheist. However, he made no effort to appear pious in public, and attached himself to no church."