Michel Onfray

I am a sworn atheist and therefore from my point of view the Talmud or the Koran don't constitute works of political philosophy but rather writings that stand in utter contradiction to concepts like logic, freedom, feminism, secularism, brotherhood - which are my ideals.

Philosophy is best practised by people in general and not by philosophers alone. Philosophy is too often a luxury now, but in ancient Greece, carpenters, masons and beggars were the main practitioners. What I am trying to develop is a philosophical system where all the subjects can be taught.

If we include hedonistic philosophy in hospitals, the lives of patients suffering from cancer would be much, much better.

For the establishment, philosophy is both an elitist and an idealist discipline: In high school, it is a compulsory subject; at university, they teach the idealist line. They are conducting a conversation with themselves.

I discovered philosophy in my youth when I read 'wildly,' and thus I was exposed to the world of ideas.

Camus believed in dialogue and diplomacy, and enlisted his work as a philosopher to the need to find nonviolent solutions, whereas Sartre called for violent conflicts and justified terror.

You cannot kill a breeze, a wind, a fragrance; you cannot kill a dream or an ambition.

I believe in libertarian options because they allow an interesting management of the capital and are based on co-operation, reciprocity, contract, federation.

Religion is a reassurance - in fact, that's its only purpose.

We do not possess an official certificate of birth for worship of one God. But the family line is clear: the Jews invented it to endure the coherence, cohesion and existence of their small, threatened people.

Socialists find me too far left; Trotskyites not far enough; ecologists say I am too happy eating foie gras, defending nuclear energy and GM plants; feminists find I am not enough of a woman; anarchists a petit-bourgeois who has sold out because I believe in universal suffrage.

We can no more tolerate neutrality and benevolence toward every conceivable form of discourse, including that of magical thinking, than we can lump together executioner and victim, good and evil.