Luther Burbank

"The word 'religion' has acquired a very bad name among those who really love truth, justice, charity. It also exhales the musty odor of sanctimony and falsehood."

"As a scientist, I can not help feeling that all religions are on a tottering foundation. None is perfect or inspired. The idea that a good God would send people to a burning hell is utterly damnable to me. I don't want to have anything to do with such a God."

"And to think of this great country in danger of being dominated by people ignorant enough to take a few ancient Babylonian legends as the canons of modern culture. Our scientific men are paying for their failure to speak out earlier. There is no use now talking evolution to these people. Their ears are stuffed with Genesis."

"Most people’s religion is what they want to believe, not what they do believe."

"I am an infidel today. I do not believe what has been served to me to believe. I am a doubter, a questioner, a skeptic. When it can be proved to me that there is immortality, that there is resurrection beyond the gates of death, then will I believe. Until then, no."

"The integrity of one's own mind is of infinitely more value than adherence to any creed or system. We must choose between a dead faith belonging to the past and a living, growing ever-advancing science belonging to the future."

"Flowers always make people better, happier, and more helpful; they are sunshine, food and medicine to the mind."

"Justice, love, truth, peace and harmony, a serene unity with science and the laws of the universe."