Quotes and anectdotes from the wise to the foolish, and the courageous to the drunk

religion

A religion that takes no account of practical affairs and does not help to solve them is no religion.

A thorough knowledge of the Bible is worth more than a college education.

Every formula of every religion has in this age of reason, to submit to the acid test of reason and universal assent.

Fear of death makes us devoid both of valour and religion. For want of valour is want of religious faith.

Gentleness, self-sacrifice and generosity are the exclusive possession of no one race or religion.

God is a thought who makes crooked all that is straight.

God made everything out of nothing, but the nothingness shows through.

I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.

In Christianity neither morality nor religion come into contact with reality at any point.

Intolerance respecting other people's religion is toleration itself in comparison with intolerance respecting other people's art.

Love is my religion - I could die for it.

My religion is based on truth and non-violence. Truth is my God. Non-violence is the means of realising Him.

No philosophy, no religion, has ever brought so glad a message to the world as this good news of Atheism.

One's own religion is after all a matter between oneself and one's Maker and no one else's.

Religion is a matter of the heart. No physical inconvenience can warrant abandonment of one's own religion.

Religion is to mysticism what popularization is to science.

Religion often partakes of the myth of progress that shields us from the terrors of an uncertain future.

Religion, oh, just another of those numerous failures resulting from an attempt to popularize art.

There is not enough religion in the world even to destroy religion.

Those who say religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion is.

When I admire the wonders of a sunset or the beauty of the moon, my soul expands in the worship of the creator.

Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither.

Certain I am, that Christian Religion does no where allow Rebellion.

Difference of religion breeds more quarrels than difference of politics.

Doubt is part of all religion. All the religious thinkers were doubters.

I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.

I do not know how to teach philosophy without becoming a disturber of established religion.

If faith is lost, there is no security and there is no life for him who does not adhere to religion.

Music is my religion.

My religion lies in my composition.

Nothing can be more contrary to religion and the clergy than reason and common sense.

Prisons are built with stones of Law. Brothels with the bricks of religion.

Religion is the sole technique for the validating of values.

Religion needs a baptism of horse sense.

Religion promotes the divine discontent within oneself, so that one tries to make oneself a better person and draw oneself closer to God.

Religion which lays so many restraints upon us, is a troublesome companion to those who will lay no restraints upon themselves.

Skeptical scrutiny is the means, in both science and religion, by which deep thoughts can be winnowed from deep nonsense.

The glory of Christianity is to conquer by forgiveness.

The memory of my own suffering has prevented me from ever shadowing one young soul with the superstition of the Christian religion.

The truths of religion are never so well understood as by those who have lost the power of reason.

To gather with God's people in united adoration of the Father is as necessary to the Christian life as prayer.

We have enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.

When it is a question of money, everybody is of the same religion.

Every man, either to his terror or consolation, has some sense of religion.

I call religion a natural authority, but it has usually been conceived as a supernatural authority.

In Europe art has to a large degree taken the place of religion. In America it seems rather to be science.

No, the religion of Jesus is a social religion.

People in general are equally horrified at hearing the Christian religion doubted, and at seeing it practiced.

Religion fails if it cannot speak to men as they are.

Religion in its humility restores man to his only dignity, the courage to live by grace.

Religion is organized to satisfy and guide the soul - politics does the same thing for the body.

The three great elements of modern civilization, Gun powder, Printing, and the Protestant religion.

The true meaning of religion is thus, not simply morality, but morality touched by emotion.

There is no higher religion than human service. To work for the common good is the greatest creed.

Wealth, religion, military victory have more rhetorical than efficacious worth.

Where knowledge ends, religion begins.

Wonder is the basis of worship.

A little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion.

All religion, my friend, is simply evolved out of fraud, fear, greed, imagination, and poetry.

All who think cannot but see there is a sanction like that of religion which binds us in partnership in the serious work of the world.

Among politicians the esteem of religion is profitable the principles of it are troublesome.

As long as I don't write about the government, religion, politics, and other institutions, I am free to print anything.

Bigotry murders religion to frighten fools with her ghost.

But even in the Christian religion, much of its real meaning is hidden by words that are misleading and symbols that but few understand.

Civilisation has ever accompanied emigration and conquest - the conflict of opinion, of religion, or of race.

Do you think that God will punish them for not practicing a religion which he did not reveal to them?

Every sect is a moral check on its neighbour. Competition is as wholesome in religion as in commerce.

For me sport was a religion... with religious sentiment.

Give yourself entirely to God, enter and hide in the hidden ground of your soul.

God is to be worshipped as the one beloved, dearer than everything in this and next life.

I ask you to pray for me, for once age has overtaken us, we find consolation only in religion.

I won't take my religion from any man who never works except with his mouth.

I'm not involved in the politics of religion, but I love what the message is.

If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough.

If, then, you are looking for the way by which you should go, take Christ, because He Himself is the way.

Next to religion, let your care be to promote justice.

Nothing is so fatal to religion as indifference.

People here argue about religion interminably, but it appears that they are competing at the same time to see who can be the least devout.

Prayer is aligning ourselves with the purposes of God.

Religion and political expediency go beautifully hand in hand.

Religion is essentially the art and the theory of the remaking of man. Man is not a finished creation.

Religion is not a department of life it is something that enters into the whole of it.

Religion's in the heart, not in the knees.

Science investigates religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge which is power religion gives man wisdom which is control.

Selfishness is the only real atheism aspiration, unselfishness, the only real religion.

Superstition is the religion of feeble minds.

The difference between a saint and a hypocrite is that one lies for his religion, the other by it.

The spiritual element, the really important part of religion, has no concern with Time and Space, temporary mundane laws, or conduct.

There are three modes of bearing the ills of life, by indifference, by philosophy, and by religion.

There's naught, no doubt, so much the spirit calms as rum and true religion.

True religion... is giving and finding one's happiness by bringing happiness into the lives of others.

Whoever seeks to set one religion against another seeks to destroy all religion.

Worship is a way of seeing the world in the light of God.

You cannot believe in God until you believe in yourself.

Your daily life is your temple and your religion. When you enter into it take with you your all.

Any system of religion that has anything in it that shocks the mind of a child, cannot be true.

Counting is the religion of this generation it is its hope and its salvation.

Every religion is good that teaches man to be good and I know of none that instructs him to be bad.

I am determined that my children shall be brought up in their father's religion, if they can find out what it is.

I care not much for a man's religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it.

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.

I know the Bible is inspired because it inspires me.

I'm religiously opposed to religion.

If you reject the food, ignore the customs, fear the religion and avoid the people, you might better stay at home.

In every religion there is an element of the supernatural, varying with the influence of pure reason over its devotees.

Is it not a species of blasphemy to call the New Testament revealed religion, when we see in it such contradictions and absurdities.

It is easy to talk on religion, but difficult to practice it.

Like religion, politics, and family planning, cereal is not a topic to be brought up in public. It's too controversial.

My country is the world, and my religion is to do good.

No power of government ought to be employed in the endeavor to establish any system or article of belief on the subject of religion.

Of all the tyrannies that affect mankind, tyranny in religion is the worst.

One act of obedience is better than one hundred sermons.

Persecution is not an original feature in any religion but it is always the strongly marked feature of all religions established by law.

Religion is all bunk.

Religion is the last refuge of human savagery.

Religion is the masterpiece of the art of animal training, for it trains people as to how they shall think.

The American Indian was an individualist in religion as in war. He had neither a national army nor an organized church.

The Bible shows the way to go to heaven, not the way the heavens go.

The greatest thing a human soul ever does in this world... to see clearly is poetry, prophecy and religion all in one.

The religion of the Indian is the last thing about him that the man of another race will ever understand.

The World is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion.

There are many of us that are willing to do great things for the Lord, but few of us are willing to do little things.

There is a very intimate connection between hypnotic phenomena and religion.

To reject even one major tenet of the religion or to violate one major rule of behavior is enough to get one kicked out - or worse.

To see clearly is poetry, prophecy and religion all in one.

Toleration is the best religion.

When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. That's my religion.

When we blindly adopt a religion, a political system, a literary dogma, we become automatons. We cease to grow.

You might sooner get lightning out of incense smoke than true action or passion out of your modern English religion.

After all, is football a game or a religion?

And what is religion, you might ask. It's a technology of living.

But it is the province of religion, of philosophy, of pure poetry only, to go beyond life, beyond time, into eternity.

God is a metaphor for that which transcends all levels of intellectual thought. It's as simple as that.

He, however, who begins with Metaphysics, will not only become confused in matters of religion, but will fall into complete infidelity.

I am a deeply religious nonbeliever - this is a somewhat new kind of religion.

If we have to give up either religion or education, we should give up education.

It was the experience of mystery - even if mixed with fear - that engendered religion.

Morality is of the highest importance - but for us, not for God.

One strength of the communist system of the East is that it has some of the character of a religion and inspires the emotions of a religion.

Religion flourishes in greater purity, without than with the aid of Government.

Science may eventually explain the world of How. The ultimate world of Why may remain for contemplation, philosophy, religion.

Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.

Sex is the ersatz or substitute religion of the 20th Century.

Sex is the mysticism of materialism and the only possible religion in a materialistic society.

True religion is real living living with all one's soul, with all one's goodness and righteousness.

When I have a terrible need of - shall I say the word - religion. Then I go out and paint the stars.

At the bottom of education, at the bottom of politics, even at the bottom of religion, there must be for our race economic independence.

Difference of opinion is advantageous in religion. The several sects perform the office of a Censor - over each other.

Even if it were proven that God didn't exist, Religion would still be Saintly and Divine.

Fear of things invisible in the natural seed of that which everyone in himself calleth religion.

Generally speaking, the errors in religion are dangerous those in philosophy only ridiculous.

I like the religion that teaches liberty, equality and fraternity.

I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend.

It is in our lives and not our words that our religion must be read.

Joy in the universe, and keen curiosity about it all - that has been my religion.

Prayer is the spirit speaking truth to Truth.

Religion has done love a great service by making it a sin.

Religion is the recognition of all our duties as divine commands.

Religion which requires persecution to sustain, it is of the devil's propagation.

Some of you say religion makes people happy. So does laughing gas.

The equation of religion with belief is rather recent.

The Kingdom of Heaven is not a place, but a state of mind.

The secret of a person's nature lies in their religion and what they really believes about the world and their place in it.

There is a heroism in crime as well as in virtue. Vice and infamy have their altars and their religion.

A man will do more for his stubbornness than for his religion or his country.

All humanity is passion without passion, religion, history, novels, art would be ineffectual.

Earth changes, but thy soul and God stand sure.

Happiness is a mystery, like religion, and should never be rationalised.

I have a great love and respect for religion, great love and respect for atheism. What I hate is agnosticism, people who do not choose.

I have now disposed of all my property to my family. There is one thing more I wish I could give them, and that is the Christian religion.

I maintain that Truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect.

If there is a God, atheism must seem to Him as less of an insult than religion.

It is the test of a good religion whether you can joke about it.

Jesus does not give recipes that show the way to God as other teachers of religion do. He is himself the way.

Let us not seek to bring religion to others, but let us endeavor to live it ourselves.

Let your religion be less of a theory and more of a love affair.

More people have been slaughtered in the name of religion than for any other single reason. That, my friends, that is true perversion.

Passion is universal humanity. Without it religion, history, romance and art would be useless.

Politics in America is the binding secular religion.

Prayer does not change God, but it changes him who prays.

Religion is an illusion and it derives its strength from the fact that it falls in with our instinctual desires.

Religion is not a burden, not a weight, it is wings.

Religion is something left over from the infancy of our intelligence, it will fade away as we adopt reason and science as our guidelines.

Religion is the frozen thought of man out of which they build temples.

Religion is the impotence of the human mind to deal with occurrences it cannot understand.

Religion is the opium of the masses.

Religion is the possibility of the removal of every ground of confidence except confidence in God alone.

Religion, you can't a handle on it, you just have to know or not know-people either believe or they don't believe.

Science, like art, religion, commerce, warfare, and even sleep, is based on presuppositions.

Superstition is the only religion of which base souls are capable of.

Teach a child what is wise, that is morality. Teach him what is wise and beautiful, that is religion!

The first requisite for the happiness of the people is the abolition of religion.

The first time I sang in the church choir two hundred people changed their religion.

There is no surer sign of decay in a country than to see the rites of religion held in contempt.

This is all the inheritance I give to my dear family. The religion of Christ will give them one which will make them rich indeed.

True Americanism is opposed utterly to any political divisions resting on race and religion.

When Religion and Royalty are swept away, the people will attack the great, and after the great, they will fall upon the rich.

Adherents of the new religious right reject the separation of politics and religion, but they bring no spiritual insights to politics.

As with the Christian religion, the worst advertisement for Socialism is its adherents.

Human beings must be known to be loved but Divine beings must be loved to be known.

I never knew how to worship until I knew how to love.

It's wonderful to climb the liquid mountains of the sky. Behind me and before me is God and I have no fears.

Men despise religion. They hate it and are afraid it may be true.

Religion brings to man an inner strength, spiritual light, and ineffable peace.

The main object of religion is not to get a man into heaven, but to get heaven into him.

The proper reply to right wing religiosity is not to insist that politics and religion don't mix. This is the stock response of the left.

There is no cure for the pride of a virtuous nation but pure religion.

To become a popular religion, it is only necessary for a superstition to enslave a philosophy.

We are always on the anvil by trials God is shaping us for higher things.

We are punished by our sins, not for them.

We must seek the loving-kindness of God in all the breadth and open-air of common life.

What a pity it is that we have no amusements in England but vice and religion!

After it is all over, the religion of man is his most important possession.

Fascism is a religion. The twentieth century will be known in history as the century of Fascism.

Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.

I would no more quarrel with a man because of his religion than I would because of his art.

It is a truism that almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.

It is only when men begin to worship that they begin to grow.

No man ever believes that the Bible means what it says: He is always convinced that it says what he means.

Religion and art spring from the same root and are close kin. Economics and art are strangers.

Religion enabled society to organise itself to debate goodness, just as Greek drama had once done.

The more powerful and original a mind, the more it will incline towards the religion of solitude.

There is only one religion, though there are a hundred versions of it.

To know a person's religion we need not listen to his profession of faith but must find his brand of intolerance.

We have to pray with our eyes on God, not on the difficulties.

A religion without mystery must be a religion without God.

Even if a unity of faith is not possible, a unity of love is.

I have an everyday religion that works for me. Love yourself first, and everything else falls into line.

If I had to choose a religion, the sun as the universal giver of life would be my god.

No religion can long continue to maintain its purity when the church becomes the subservient vassal of the state.

Patriotism is a kind of religion it is the egg from which wars are hatched.

Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet.

Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich.

That which we call the Hindu religion is really the Eternal religion because it embraces all others.

There is a vulgar incredulity, which in historical matters, as well as in those of religion, finds it easier to doubt than to examine.

To die for a religion is easier than to live it absolutely.

To fall in love is to create a religion that has a fallible god.

Twin-sister of Religion, Selfishness.

Communism, like any other revealed religion, is largely made up of prophecies.

Go beyond science, into the region of metaphysics. Real religion is beyond argument. It can only be lived both inwardly and outwardly.

I am an Anglo-Catholic in religion, a classicist in literature and a royalist in politics.

Love and business and family and religion and art and patriotism are nothing but shadows of words when a man's starving!

Moral values, and a culture and a religion, maintaining these values are far better than laws and regulations.

Religion may be defined thus: a belief in, and homage rendered to, existences unseen and causes unknown.

The Godhead consists of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The Father is a material being.

There is one thing higher than Royalty: and that is religion, which causes us to leave the world, and seek God.

We know too much, and are convinced of too little. Our literature is a substitute for religion, and so is our religion.