Here, we’ve compiled a list of the best Religion Quotes from famous authors such as Penn Jillette, Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Huston Smith, Michael Berryman, William Blake. Let’s look at these pieces of wisdom. We definitely have something to learn from them!
1
Behaving morally because of a hope of reward or a fear of punishment is not morality. Morality is not bribery or threats. Religion is bribery and threats. Humans have morality. We don’t need religion.
2
Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.
3
Every society and religion has rules, for both have moral laws. And the essence of morality consists, as in art, of drawing the line somewhere.
4
If your religion is better than mine and your opinion, you have a real problem.
5
Prisons are built with stones of Law. Brothels with the bricks of religion.
6
There are things about organized religion which I resent. Christ is revered as the Prince of Peace, but more blood has been shed in His name than any other figure in history. You show me one step forward in the name of religion, and I’ll show you a hundred retrogressions.
7
This is God’s world, not Satan’s. Christians are the lawful heirs, not non-Christians.
8
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.
9
Science is a differential equation. Religion is a boundary condition.
10
Wherever men and women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must – at that moment – become the center of the universe.
11
Indian religion has always felt that since the minds, the temperaments and the intellectual affinities of men are unlimited in their variety, a perfect liberty of thought and of worship must be allowed to the individual in his approach to the Infinite.
12
I think we need to do some deep soul searching about what’s important in our lives and renew our spirit and our spiritual thinking, whether it’s through faith-based religion or just through loving nature or helping your fellow man.
13
I have a great identification with Judaism as a religion and as a culture, and all the values that created such a great history, and the Jewish contribution to the betterment of all humanity.
14
Islam does not believe in democracy, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, or freedom of assembly. It does not separate religion and politics. It is partly a religion, but it is much more than that. It has a political agenda that goes far outside the realm of religion.
15
My definition, the definition that I’ve always believed in, is that esprit de corps means love for one’s own military legion – in my case, the United States Marine Corps. It means more than self-preservation, religion, or patriotism. I’ve also learned that this loyalty to one’s corps travels both ways: up and down.
16
You must learn to exist with no religion, no country, no allies. You must learn to live alone in silence.
17
You won’t see Christians violently attacking people for criticising their religion like you do with Islam, things like the Charlie Hebdo attack.
18
We must respect the other fellow’s religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart.
19
Well, religion has been passed down through the years by stories people tell around the campfire. Stories about God, stories about love. Stories about good spirits and evil spirits.
20
When Christians start thinking about Jesus, things start breaking down, they lose their faith. It’s perfectly possible to go to church every Sunday and not ask any questions, just because you like it as a way of life. They fear that if they ask questions they’ll lose their Christ, the very linchpin of their religion.
21
I think regardless of what your religion is or what you believe, you try to treat people in a positive way, and that’s all you can do in life.
22
The interesting part of my spiritual life is studying as much as you can. Islam and Buddhism and Hinduism and Shamanism and Judaism, Christianity – you try to learn what the precepts are, what the religion is, and ultimately, it’s based in the same thought, it’s based in the same outcome, you know.
23
I have a reputation worldwide of being tolerant of all people and their views. I’m too well-educated to criticize a certain religion or group of people for what they believe in. It’s called freedom.
24
I would no more quarrel with a man because of his religion than I would because of his art.
25
Jesus does not give recipes that show the way to God as other teachers of religion do. He is himself the way.
26
Beauty has no boundaries, no rules, no colors. Beauty is like a religion. You can include everything inside it.
27
I have been astonished that men could die martyrs for religion – I have shuddered at it. I shudder no more – I could be martyred for my religion – Love is my religion – I could die for that.
28
Within the covers of the Bible are the answers for all the problems men face.
29
I have the highest respect for the concept of ‘Advait’ – the oneness of all humans – that is central to Indian culture, thought, and religion.
30
When a dog barks at the moon, then it is religion; but when he barks at strangers, it is patriotism!
31
A political party cannot have a religion. Only individuals can. Otherwise, you’d be exploiting religion, and religion is so supreme that it cannot be exploited or taken advantage of.
32
Religion is a matter of the heart. No physical inconvenience can warrant abandonment of one’s own religion.
33
I’m looking for the best person irregardless of political party, of race or religion, or color of their skin. Those things don’t matter to me. I want someone who’s qualified, who has a qualification to character and the integrity to do the things that have to be done to save this world.
34
I wasn’t raised a Catholic, but Yolanthe was, and I wanted to get more involved in her religion.
35
We need to rebuild our nation with a new foundation. A foundation rooted in love, and care, and equality. Where justice is truly real for all of us, regardless of race, class, gender, orientation, or religion. I fully believe we can.
36
Violence and religion have often gone together, but it’s not a perfect correlation, and it doesn’t have to be a permanent connection, because religions themselves change.
37
Surely the day will come when color means nothing more than the skin tone, when religion is seen uniquely as a way to speak one’s soul, when birth places have the weight of a throw of the dice and all men are born free, when understanding breeds love and brotherhood.
38
Religion is essentially the art and the theory of the remaking of man. Man is not a finished creation.
39
Religion is the idol of the mob; it adores everything it does not understand.
40
The Bible is the fountain of truth.
41
The demand for adequate social housing provision is something that transcends race, religion and settled status.
42
The habit of religion is oppressive, an easy way out of thought.
43
Islam, or any religion, will become totalitarian if it is made into an ideology, because that is the nature of ideologies.
44
Some people think that religion is not essential to society. I do not hold this view. I consider the foundation of religion to be essential to the life and practices of a society.
45
Baseball is more than a game to me, it’s a religion.
46
If there is a God, it’s going to be a whole lot bigger and a whole lot more incomprehensible than anything that any theologian of any religion has ever proposed.
47
The problem is that religion tends to give people bad reasons to be good.
48
Social etiquette dictates that when in mixed company, one should avoid discussing politics and religion. As someone who is quite active on various social portals, I can attest to the visceral emotions that are triggered when these topics are broached!
49
I’m not a real religious guy. I’m a spiritual guy and my religion is love.
50
I just don’t like the separatism that comes from religion, and, without fail, the need to put your beliefs on someone else. When you start telling someone else how to live, you should check yourself, man.
51
Our civilization, such as it is, was shaped by religion, and the men who aspire to public office anyplace in the free world must make obeisance to God or risk immediate opprobrium.
52
Nothing can be more contrary to religion and the clergy than reason and common sense.
53
Religion doesn’t play any part in my life in terms of how I live my life. But I don’t think I’ve ever gone through a day in my life without hearing someone say the word ‘Jew’ or saying it myself.
54
Any religion that professes to be concerned about the souls of men and is not concerned about the slums that damn them, the economic conditions that strangle them and the social conditions that cripple them is a spiritually moribund religion awaiting burial.
55
Religion kept some of my relatives alive, because it was all they had. If they hadn’t had some hope of heaven, some companionship in Jesus, they probably would have committed suicide, their lives were so hellish.
56
Religion was used as an ideology, as a system of control. When they forced the veil upon women, they were using it as an instrument of control in the same way that in Mao’s China people were wearing Mao jackets and women were not supposed to wear any makeup.
57
Religion has to stay in the heart, not in politics. It is private.
58
When the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said ‘Let us pray.’ We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land.
59
We must seek the loving-kindness of God in all the breadth and open-air of common life.
60
Religion can never reform mankind because religion is slavery.
61
If I or my soldiers have plundered or done injury to the houses or ministers of religion, I repent me of my sin; but it is not of Edward of England I shall ask pardon.
62
I care not much for a man’s religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it.
63
No human heart is denied empathy. No religion can demolish that by indoctrination. No culture, no nation and nationalism – nothing can touch it because it is empathy.
64
Today’s interpretations of religion are often backward and contradict the needs of civilization.
65
Organized religion is a sham and a crutch for weak-minded people who need strength in numbers. It tells people to go out and stick their noses in other people’s business.
66
I’m a Muslim, but I think Jesus would have a drink with me. He would be cool. He would talk to me.
67
I think religion played a huge part in Bush’s re-election.
68
If you want to move people, you look for a point of sensitivity, and in Egypt nothing moves people as much as religion.
69
I was raised Catholic, and I have an aversion to anyone who takes religion to the extreme.
70
I think religion is a mistake – I’m exhausted by its self-righteousness. I think atheists should start screaming for attention like religious folks do.
71
I find the whole business of religion profoundly interesting. But it does mystify me that otherwise intelligent people take it seriously.
72
Spiritual government means a pure government that doesn’t discriminate on the lines of caste, creed, or religion.
73
The earth is the Lord’s fullness thereof: this is no longer a hollow dictum of religion, but a directive for economic action toward human brotherhood.
74
The struggle of democratic secularism, religious tolerance, individual freedom and feminism against authoritarian patriarchal religion, culture and morality is going on all over the world – including the Islamic world, where dissidents are regularly jailed, killed, exiled or merely intimidated and silenced.
75
Personally, I don’t choose any particular religion or symbol or group of words or teachings to define me. That’s between me and the most high. You know, my higher self. The Creator.
76
Being a rock star is like being a cult leader – you really have to be in your own religion.
77
Religion does not consist in making a noise, yet when the soul is filled with the Spirit of the Lord, sweet, heart-felt praise to God glorifies him.
78
What religion a man holds, to what race he belongs, these things are not important; the really important thing is this knowledge: the knowledge of God’s plan for men. For God has a plan, and that plan is evolution.
79
We all dream. We dream vividly, depending on our nature. Our existence is beyond our explanation, whether we believe in God or we have religion or we’re atheist.
80
Since many of you do not belong to the Catholic Church and others are non-believers, from the bottom of my heart I give this silent blessing to each and every one of you, respecting the conscience of each one of you but knowing that each one of you is a child of God.
81
Science can purify religion from error and superstition. Religion can purify science from idolatry and false absolutes.
82
Joy in the universe, and keen curiosity about it all – that has been my religion.
83
That means that every human being – without distinction of sex, age, race, skin color, language, religion, political view, or national or social origin – possesses an inalienable and untouchable dignity.
84
Where you have no religion, you are sure to have no government, for as religion disappears, anarchy takes place and fixes a compleat Hell on earth till religion returns.
85
It is up to God to reveal a religion, but up to us to understand and realise it.
86
A union of government and religion tends to destroy government and degrade religion.
87
Religion, born of the earth’s need for the disclosing of a god, is related to and co-extensive with not the individual man, but the whole of mankind.
88
At first, laws evolved out of religious doctrines. It followed that they were recognized only when advantageous to those who practiced the same religion and who appeared equals under the protection of the same gods. For the members of all other cults, there was neither law nor mercy.
89
My father hates organized religion, probably because he hates the God who killed his little girl back in 1968. I find religions variously bemusing.
90
The first amendment makes it clear that we are free to practice religion without government interference. The Constitution also establishes the separation of church and state so that the laws we live by our never guided by religious zeal.
91
It is only partly true that religion does more harm than good in society. The community makes God into the image it wants, vengeful, or milky sweet, or scrupulously just, and so on.
92
Religion is such a path with people.
93
Do not neglect secret prayer, for it is the soul of religion.
94
My first dissatisfaction has always been with religion.
95
I strongly believe that love as an emotion is sufficient for a girl and a boy to be together, and these societal norms like caste, creed or religion are all man-made.
96
The Bible shows the way to go to heaven, not the way the heavens go.
97
The attitude is we live and let live. This is actually an amazing change in values in a rather short time and it’s an example of freedom from religion.
98
I’m not into organized religion. I’m into believing in a higher source of creation, realizing we’re all just part of nature.
99
I won’t take my religion from any man who never works except with his mouth.
100
We have enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.
101
Religion will prove to the believer a comforter and a sure guide to the fountain of true happiness.
102
Your daily life is your temple and your religion. When you enter into it take with you your all.
103
I believe that Catholics involved in politics carry the values of their religion within them, but have the mature awareness and expertise to implement them. The Church will never go beyond its task of expressing and disseminating its values, at least as long as I’m here.
104
Religion stands, the Church blocking the sun.
105
There is no religion without love, and people may talk as much as they like about their religion, but if it does not teach them to be good and kind to man and beast, it is all a sham.
106
There is nothing evil save that which perverts the mind and shackles the conscience.
107
Religion is supposed to be a positive thing when you look at the true religions around the world, not the fundamentalists. You always have to go with what your spirit tells you, not what people advise you. I’m a man that will always follow my own path.
108
As a scientist, I don’t believe science will ever discover whether God exists. Nor do I believe religion will ever prove it.
109
Religion is a very delicate subject in Lebanon. You have to know how to say things in a very delicate way in order to be accepted.
110
I’ve taken a stand against religion for as long I’ve been able to write and think.
111
Hobbies of any kind are boring except to people who have the same hobby. This is also true of religion, although you will not find me saying so in print.
112
To the man who reads ‘Scouting for Boys’ superficially, there is a disappointing lack of religion in the book. But to him who tries it in practice, the basic religion underlying it soon becomes apparent.
113
The first requisite for the happiness of the people is the abolition of religion.
114
Secularism is categorically not saying that the religious may not speak out publicly or have a say in public life. It is about saying that religion alone should not confer a privileged say in public life, or greater influence on it. It really is as simple as that.
115
That I am not a member of any Christian church is true; but I have never denied the truth of the Scriptures, and I have never spoken with intentional disrespect of religion in general, or of any denomination of Christians in particular.
116
I don’t know whether I want to improve religion or not. I prefer to get rid of it.
117
We should pass the U.N.’s Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism. At least it will clearly establish whom you view as a terrorist and whom you don’t. We need to delink terrorism from religion – to isolate terrorists who use this interchange of arguments between terrorism and religion.
118
I have values. But morals are Christian. There’s no religion here. Values. Don’t hurt when you don’t need to, but don’t let anybody step over that line – it’s an invisible line, but it’s respect for somebody’s space.
119
Conversion is not my intention. Changing religion is not easy. You may develop some kind of confusion or difficulties.
120
I’m a Christian, but I don’t believe in religion or anything like that.
121
In politics, as in religion, it is equally absurd to aim at making proselytes by fire and sword. Heresies in either can rarely be cured by persecution.
122
Religion is not merely the opium of the masses, it’s the cyanide.
123
All outward forms of religion are almost useless, and are the causes of endless strife. Believe there is a great power silently working all things for good, behave yourself and never mind the rest.
124
Religion is not a burden, not a weight, it is wings.
125
We had South African accents. I was a vegan. I was raised without religion. I was just the weirdest kid in this small town, so I got made fun of a lot for it.
126
Disappointment over nationalistic authoritarian regimes may have contributed to the fact that today religion offers a new and subjectively more convincing language for old political orientations.
127
I think it’s been hard for people to understand how Islam can be a good religion, and yet the Islamists are evil. Those of us who have had experience with Islam understand this, just as we understand the difference between snake handlers and people going to church on Sunday morning.
128
I tell my children what I think myself: That religion is not necessarily convincing, but it is still interesting and not to be laughed at or denigrated.
129
Whether one believes in a religion or not, and whether one believes in rebirth or not, there isn’t anyone who doesn’t appreciate kindness and compassion.
130
I am determined that my children shall be brought up in their father’s religion, if they can find out what it is.
131
One of the things that is wrong with religion is that it teaches us to be satisfied with answers which are not really answers at all.
132
I don’t think the 9/11 attacks taught us anything we didn’t already know about religion. It has long been obvious – even to the deeply religious – that religious fanaticism is an extremely dangerous deranger of otherwise sane and goodhearted people.
133
We have enslaved the rest of the animal creation, and have treated our distant cousins in fur and feathers so badly that beyond doubt, if they were able to formulate a religion, they would depict the Devil in human form.
134
Preach the Gospel at all times and when necessary use words.
135
To write about the hijab is to step into a minefield. Even among those who share my cultural and faith background, opinions veer from those who despise it as a symbol of backwardness to those for whom religion begins and ends with that piece of cloth.
136
The true meaning of religion is thus, not simply morality, but morality touched by emotion.
137
Jesus is ideal and wonderful, but you Christians – you are not like him.
138
True religion is real living; living with all one’s soul, with all one’s goodness and righteousness.
139
Even if a unity of faith is not possible, a unity of love is.
140
To me, film is a religion. I don’t expect to get paid to make it, but I do expect total dedication.
141
The essence of religion is the knowledge of God which is eternal life. That and nothing less than that is religion. Everything else is on the surface, is superfluous save for the needs of men.
142
No philosophy, no religion, has ever brought so glad a message to the world as this good news of Atheism.
143
Religion without humanity is very poor human stuff.
144
Many moments in religion seem attractive to me even though I can’t believe in any of it.
145
Religion is so much more than the god you pray to. The religion that you associate with, it’s culture, it is family, it is background. That is something that I have always grown up with.
146
I believe in mysticism, with an interior goal, and you are your own temple and your own priest. I don’t believe anymore in religions, because you see today there are religious wars, prejudice, false morals, and the woman is despised. Religion is too old now; it’s from another century, it’s not for today.
147
Let your religion be less of a theory and more of a love affair.
148
I believe that a government has only one religion – India first. A government has only one holy book – our Constitution. A government has only one kind of devotion – towards nation.
149
One man’s cult is another man’s religion.
150
I say quite deliberately that the Christian religion, as organized in its Churches, has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world.
151
My great religion is a belief in the blood, the flesh, as being wiser than the intellect. We can go wrong in our minds. But what our blood feels and believes and says, is always true. The intellect is only a bit and a bridle.
152
For me, what’s the old expression, ‘Comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable,’ that’s really what religion is good at when it is done right. And the truth is, so is television.
153
One person’s religion is another person’s cult.
154
Let me say this loud and clear. There is a world of difference between terrorist acts and the Islamic Shari’a. Islam is not only a religion, but a way of life. And at its heart lie the sacred principles of tolerance and dialogue.
155
I am thankful I can see much to admire in all religions.
156
Communism is a religion that is inspired, directed and motivated by the Devil himself who has declared war against Almighty God.
157
There is no higher religion than human service. To work for the common good is the greatest creed.
158
Religion’s in the heart, not in the knees.
159
The biggest danger of this terrorism and extremism is the tarnishing of the reputation of our beloved religion… We will not allow this to happen.
160
The truths of religion are never so well understood as by those who have lost the power of reason.
161
The state exists to serve and protect every citizen, regardless of colour, creed, race or religion – and the welfare state should exist to and protect the populace in the same non-discriminatory and universal manner.
162
I’m sickened by all religions. Religion has divided people. I don’t think there’s any difference between the pope wearing a large hat and parading around with a smoking purse and an African painting his face white and praying to a rock.
163
I believe in the religion of Islam. I believe in Allah and peace.
164
The Godhead consists of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The Father is a material being.
165
We need to reject any politics that targets people because of race or religion. This isn’t a matter of political correctness. It’s a matter of understanding what makes us strong. The world respects us not just for our arsenal; it respects us for our diversity and our openness and the way we respect every faith.
166
To be a Christian without prayer is no more possible than to be alive without breathing.
167
Religion and modernity are not necessarily mutually exclusive.
168
Religion, as it is understood in the West, does not lead toward progress, and science does not lead toward humanism.
169
I do not have the slightest bit of racism in me. I do not judge people with regards to the colour of their skin, their origin, or their religion. I defend them all, because I defend French people. And, of course, I defend the interests of France, the interests of French people.
170
I never knew how to worship until I knew how to love.
171
I played pretty darn competitive-level hockey. Then the good old knee injury. Obviously, it’s a blessing in disguise, but growing up Canadian, that’s our religion, that’s our football.
172
It’s not so much religion per se, it’s false certainty that worries me, and religion just has more than its fair share of false certainty or dogmatism. I’m really concerned when I see people pretending to know things they clearly cannot know.
173
I like potential in people. If I find someone who has lot of potential and can do something with life, then I don’t see bank balance, which family he comes from, or his religion.
174
In the West, we have been withdrawing from our tradition-, religion-, and even nation-centred cultures.
175
The three great elements of modern civilization, Gun powder, Printing, and the Protestant religion.
176
Religion can be one of the greatest impediments to finding God.
177
In Iran, there is no freedom of the press, no freedom of speech, no independent judiciary, no free elections. There is no freedom of religion – not even for Shiites, who are forced by Iran’s theocracy to adhere to one narrow set of official rules.
178
I’ve never had any religion. I’d prefer it if I did, really. Even as a boy I just couldn’t make myself believe.
179
No religion makes more use of color than Hinduism, with its blue-skinned gods and peony-lipped goddesses, and even the spring festival of Holi is focused on color: Boys squirt arcs of dyed water on passersby or dump powder, all violently hued, on their marks.
180
We can only learn to know ourselves and do what we can – namely, surrender our will and fulfill God’s will in us.
181
The difference between a saint and a hypocrite is that one lies for his religion, the other by it.
182
Nevertheless, there is another threat on the horizon. I see this threat in environmentalism which is becoming a new dominant ideology, if not a religion. Its main weapon is raising the alarm and predicting the human life endangering climate change based on man-made global warming.
183
If you have a particular faith or religion, that is good. But you can survive without it.
184
I have sung for Americans of every political persuasion, and I am proud that I never refuse to sing to an audience, no matter what religion or color of their skin, or situation in life.
185
God is a thought who makes crooked all that is straight.
186
Morality without religion is only a kind of dead reckoning – an endeavor to find our place on a cloudy sea by measuring the distance we have run, but without any observation of the heavenly bodies.
187
Religion is a big problem in Israel and the Arab world, but again, the problem isn’t religion but political leaders who want to use the religion.
188
Every religion is true one way or another. It is true when understood metaphorically. But when it gets stuck in its own metaphors, interpreting them as facts, then you are in trouble.
189
I believe in the separation of church and state, but I do not believe in the separation of politics from religion.
190
If you have religious faith, very good, you can add on secular ethics, then religious belief, add on it, very good. But even those people who have no interest about religion, okay, it’s not religion, but you can train through education.
191
Religion is love; in no case is it logic.
192
The one thing that unites all human beings, regardless of age, gender, religion or ethnic background, is that we all believe we are above-average drivers.
193
The memory of my own suffering has prevented me from ever shadowing one young soul with the superstition of the Christian religion.
194
The truth is nobody was a Muslim until Public Enemy came out. Then, everybody was Muslim this and Muslim that. It’s a bandwagon thing. Islam is a way of life… it’s a religion. It’s not just something you put on a record.
195
Religion doesn’t make people bigots. People are bigots and they use religion to justify their ideology.
196
Religion works. I know there’s comfort there, a crash pad. It’s something to explain the world and tell you there is something bigger than you, and it is going to be alright in the end. It works because it’s comforting.
197
Any time scientists disagree, it’s because we have insufficient data. Then we can agree on what kind of data to get; we get the data; and the data solves the problem. Either I’m right, or you’re right, or we’re both wrong. And we move on. That kind of conflict resolution does not exist in politics or religion.
198
At the age when other children, I imagine, experience their first ‘feeling’ for a person, or for art, or for religion, I was affectionate, good, and even pious: by that I mean that under the influence of my mother, I was devoted to the Child Jesus.
199
A thorough knowledge of the Bible is worth more than a college education.
200
I saw what religion did to people when I grew up, and I certainly didn’t want any part of it. That turned me off it.
201
A little philosophy inclineth man’s mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men’s minds about to religion.
202
Religion fails if it cannot speak to men as they are.
203
What we need is a system of thought – you might even call it a religion – that can bind humans together. A system that would fit the Republic of Chad as well as the United States: a system that would supply our idealistic young people with something to believe in.
204
A people and their religion must be judged by social standards based on social ethics. No other standard would have any meaning if religion is held to be necessary good for the well-being of the people.
205
When I think about America, I think about freedom. Freedom of speech, freedom of religion. It’s a peaceful country.
206
The thing that is being lost is heritage. In Africa, religion and advertisement and television and media hype have gotten Africans to where they are convinced psychologically that their own heritage is heathen, pagan, barbaric, savage, primitive.
207
Christianity is not about religion. It’s about faith, about being held, about being forgiven. It’s about finding joy and finding home.
208
The Americans combine the notions of religion and liberty so intimately in their minds, that it is impossible to make them conceive of one without the other.
209
I was born poor and without religion, under a happy sky, feeling harmony, not hostility, in nature. I began not by feeling torn, but in plenitude.
210
A man has no religion who has not slowly and painfully gathered one together, adding to it, shaping it; and one’s religion is never complete and final, it seems, but must always be undergoing modification.
211
Just as the soul fills the body, so God fills the world. Just as the soul bears the body, so God endures the world. Just as the soul sees but is not seen, so God sees but is not seen. Just as the soul feeds the body, so God gives food to the world.
212
Is not the brand of ‘double-dealer’ stamped on the forehead of every democratic slaveholder? Are not fraud and hypocrisy the religion of the man who calls himself a democrat, and hold his fellow-man in bondage?
213
For a lot of folks who get sober, the process of getting and staying sober becomes their higher power, and it becomes a religion that sort of consumes a whole lot of them. I just don’t think that that’s necessary. I think that that can be a side note rather than the story of your life.
214
We first fought the heathens in the name of religion, then Communism, and now in the name of drugs and terrorism. Our excuses for global domination always change.
215
For the record, I don’t worship the devil. I just hate religion.
216
I just think religion is something… It could be a beautiful thing for the individual, but when it becomes organized, that’s when religion starts taking a kind of ugly turn to me.
217
Wherever there is a settled society, religion is necessary; the laws cover manifest crimes, and religion covers secret crimes.
218
Difference of opinion is advantageous in religion. The several sects perform the office of a Censor – over each other.
219
I don’t necessarily believe in organized religion.
220
More and more people care about religious tolerance as fewer and fewer care about religion.
221
Though I believe in God, I don’t believe in religion for everybody. Some people who are a little weak and don’t want to shoulder any responsibility need Catholicism. For people at the other extreme, there is Christian Science… I think a powerful conscience is worth all the religions put together.
222
I’m still very much an atheist, except that I don’t necessarily see religion as being a bad thing. So, that’s a weird thing that I’m struggling with that seems to be offending both atheists and people that are religious.
223
A religion that takes no account of practical affairs and does not help to solve them is no religion.
224
Generally speaking, the errors in religion are dangerous; those in philosophy only ridiculous.
225
Superstition is to religion what astrology is to astronomy the mad daughter of a wise mother. These daughters have too long dominated the earth.
226
Earth changes, but thy soul and God stand sure.
227
He, however, who begins with Metaphysics, will not only become confused in matters of religion, but will fall into complete infidelity.
228
I don’t feel the need for religion. But I went on a yoga retreat last year and I do believe slightly in the karma thing and just being good and true unto yourself. And I slightly believe that you can attract good and bad to you.
229
In the 21st century, I believe the mission of the United Nations will be defined by a new, more profound awareness of the sanctity and dignity of every human life, regardless of race or religion.
230
The separation of church and state was meant to protect church from state; a state that declares religion off limits in public life is a state that declares itself supreme over all religious values.
231
It is only when men begin to worship that they begin to grow.
232
More people have been slaughtered in the name of religion than for any other single reason. That, my friends, that is true perversion.
233
Nothing defines humans better than their willingness to do irrational things in the pursuit of phenomenally unlikely payoffs. This is the principle behind lotteries, dating, and religion.
234
The main object of religion is not to get a man into heaven, but to get heaven into him.
235
I don’t believe in God but I’m very interested in her.
236
It is in our lives and not our words that our religion must be read.
237
I have never been religious. I talk to God every day, but He’s never said a word to me about religion! I think the most powerful prayer is surrender.
238
I questioned the blind faith demanded by my religion, which was Islam.
239
We are always on the anvil; by trials God is shaping us for higher things.
240
Trading and religion have always been aligned together in the history of the world, and especially on the African continent.
241
Love and business and family and religion and art and patriotism are nothing but shadows of words when a man’s starving!
242
To criticize a person for their race is manifestly irrational and ridiculous, but to criticize their religion, that is a right. That is a freedom.
243
When I do good I feel good, when I do bad I feel bad, and that’s my religion.
244
Everything is a risk in Pakistan: If you defend women, it’s a risk. If you defend non-Muslims it’s a risk. If you discuss religion, it’s a risk. But you can’t really sit there like a vegetable in your own society. And I’m committed to that society… and I feel I need to turn around and speak as I should.
245
I hate organized religion. I think you have to love thy neighbor as thyself. I think you have to pick your own God and be true to him. I always say ‘him’ rather than ‘her.’ Maybe it’s because of my generation, but I don’t like the idea of a female God. I see God as a benevolent male.
246
So I say to you, Ask and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you.
247
Set religion free, and a new humanity will begin.
248
So potent was religion in persuading to evil deeds.
249
The importance that our society attaches to sport is incredible. After all, is football a game or a religion? The people of this country have allowed sports to get completely out of hand.
250
Lukewarmness I account a sin, as great in love as in religion.
251
My family was Jehovah’s Witnesses, which is a really tough religion. It kind of deterred me from religion for a long time. They still practice, but I don’t. But I always remained spiritual, and had a belief that there is a God. I’m trying to find my way, you know?
252
Religion is just mind control.
253
The very idea that we get a moral compass from religion is horrible. Not only should we not get our moral compass from religion, as a matter of fact we don’t.
254
There’s naught, no doubt, so much the spirit calms as rum and true religion.
255
Patriotism is a kind of religion; it is the egg from which wars are hatched.
256
And I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in showing that religion and Government will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together.
257
Religion is all bunk.
258
To gather with God’s people in united adoration of the Father is as necessary to the Christian life as prayer.
259
Koran says whoever believes in God in the last day shall be saved. It is a religion whose very name, Islam, comes from the word Shalom, which means peace. It’s about establishing peace. We greet each other with peace be upon you, which the Jews do in greeting each other.
260
Young people all over the world are very frustrated. They are very disillusioned. Many of them are turning their backs on religion. They are walking away from the faith of their parents, and most of this is because religion has failed them.
261
Of course God is endlessly multi-dimensional so every religion that exists on earth represents some face, some side of God.
262
The Charter of the United Nations expresses the noblest aspirations of man: abjuration of force in the settlement of disputes between states; the assurance of human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language or religion; the safeguarding of international peace and security.
263
You’ll never get me to speak religion. You’ll never get me to speak politics.
264
Basic religion is the reason we have morals.
265
I have no belief in The Bible or religion, but I think Armageddon was a lucky guess. I honestly think it’s going to happen.
266
I think you can judge from somebody’s actions a kind of a stability and sense of purpose perhaps created by strong religious roots. I mean, there’s a certain patience, a certain discipline, I think, that religion helps you achieve.
267
I have a strong belief in God… I find religion to be a very personal thing… I am also very spiritual.
268
You don’t have to be a religious person to be affected by religion or a religious movement.
269
Prayer is aligning ourselves with the purposes of God.
270
We must search out totally new ways to anchor ourselves, for all the old roots religion, nation, community, family, or profession are now shaking under the hurricane impact of the accelerative thrust.
271
Religion and science are the two conjugated faces or phases of one and the same complete act of knowledge – the only one which can embrace the past and future of evolution and so contemplate, measure and fulfil them.
272
To fall in love is to create a religion that has a fallible god.
273
That’s what I love about Australia: we can do things the way we want to do them, because that’s the way our country is – no matter what culture you come from, you can come to Australia and practise your religion, you can practise your beliefs, and you shouldn’t be judged for it.
274
Only a god can save us.
275
I believe if religion brings you to a sense of peace, that’s beautiful. But I also believe if religion’s not your thing, that’s fine, too, just so long as you’re a good person and you find that one thing that leads you to peace and teaches you to have harmony with yourself and other people around you.
276
I’m not a religious person, and I’m not too interested in being a part of a religion, but I do like having some sort of communal gathering, and having some sense of peoples.
277
The conflict between religion and science is inherent and (very nearly) zero-sum. The success of science often comes at the expense of religious dogma; the maintenance of religious dogma always comes at the expense of science.
278
I love you when you bow in your mosque, kneel in your temple, pray in your church. For you and I are sons of one religion, and it is the spirit.
279
Yet higher religion, which is only a search for a larger life, is essentially experience and recognized the necessity of experience as its foundation long before science learnt to do so.
280
With faith and courage, generations of Armenians have overcome great suffering and proudly preserved their culture, traditions, and religion and have told the story of the genocide to an often indifferent world.
281
Movies are my religion and God is my patron. I’m lucky enough to be in the position where I don’t make movies to pay for my pool. When I make a movie, I want it to be everything to me; like I would die for it.
282
With me, personal relationships are like my religion. I care that deeply about them. I am the complete opposite of a manipulative smoothie.
283
Is it not a species of blasphemy to call the New Testament revealed religion, when we see in it such contradictions and absurdities.
284
Science investigates; religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge which is power; religion gives man wisdom which is control.
285
These things will destroy the human race: politics without principle, progress without compassion, wealth without work, learning without silence, religion without fearlessness and worship without awareness.
286
Even though you can’t expect to defeat the absurdity of the world, you must make the attempt. That’s morality, that’s religion, that’s art, that’s life.
287
Religion is absolutely unfathomable. Always and everywhere one can dig more deeply into infinities.
288
God did not intend religion to be an exercise club.
289
All too often, the word ‘religion’ has become identified with those promoting a frankly anti-scientific view of nature and of our place in the natural world.
290
I have an everyday religion that works for me. Love yourself first, and everything else falls into line.
291
I ask you to pray for me, for once age has overtaken us, we find consolation only in religion.
292
Judaism boasts of no exclusive revelation of eternal truths that are indispensable to salvation, of no revealed religion in the sense in which that term is usually understood.
293
Whether we call it religion or faith, we all battle for a balanced integrated soul.
294
Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.
295
We Americans can be rightly proud of the fact that the right to the free and unfettered exercise of religion is a primary principle in the vision and founding of our country. It defines us as a people, and has uniquely contributed to making this nation great.
296
There’s no religion but sex and music.
297
You are free; you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other place or worship in this State of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed – that has nothing to do with the business of the State.
298
Almost everything has been stolen from us by the patriarchy. Our creativity has been stolen, our creative energies, our religion. I want it back.
299
I think people often come to the synagogue, mosque, the church looking for God, and what we give them is religion.
300
In a sense, terrorism blossomed in the advent of television. Television promotes terrorism in religion and in politics.
301
It may be that religion is dead, and if it is, we had better know it and set ourselves to try to discover other sources of moral strength before it is too late.
302
I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend.
303
I have always marveled that so many religions exact such revenge against dissenters. It only weakens the appeal of their faith and contradicts any claims they might have made that ‘all religions are basically the same.’ If all religions were indeed the same, why not let someone be ‘converted’ to another religion?
304
It is a masterpiece of the devil to make us believe that children cannot understand religion. Would Christ have made a child the standard of faith if He had known that it was not capable of understanding His words?
305
Whereas religious prayers sing of peace and harmony, religion has divided human beings through an atrocious history of enmity and bloodshed. Yet, behind the veil of superficiality and hypocrisy, I always believed in the inherent beauty of God that lies at the essence of all true spiritual paths.
306
Religion is the opium of the masses.
307
Is woman a religion? Well, perhaps you will have the chance of judging for yourselves if you go to America. There you will find men treating women with just the same respect formerly accorded only to religious dignitaries or to great nobles.
308
Not every religion has to have St. Augustine’s attitude to sex. Why even in our culture marriages are celebrated in a church, everyone present knows what is going to happen that night, but that doesn’t prevent it being a religious ceremony.
309
Worship means reverence and humility it means revering your real self and humbling delusions.
310
The ecclesiastical establishments of Europe which serve to support tyrannical governments are not the Christian religion but abuses and corruptions of it.
311
Go beyond science, into the region of metaphysics. Real religion is beyond argument. It can only be lived both inwardly and outwardly.
312
Religion is there to say, ‘Hey, you don’t have to worry – there’s an afterlife.’
313
Black Consciousness seeks to infuse the black community with a new-found pride in themselves, their efforts, their value systems, their culture, their religion and their outlook to life.
314
Such is the feebleness of humanity, such is its perversity, that doubtless it is better for it to be subject to all possible superstitions, as long as they are not murderous, than to live without religion.
315
I’m going to tell you what my religion is. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Period. Terminato. Finito.
316
Look at Islam in a rational manner and without demagoguery or emotion. It is the leading religion of the world with 1.5 billion followers.
317
There must be freedom for all to live, to think, to worship, no book, no avenue must be closed.
318
When I have a terrible need of – shall I say the word – religion. Then I go out and paint the stars.
319
I think India is very passionate about films. It’s almost a second religion back home. Due to that, I think film stars are – are really held in great esteem. Not that we’re complaining, but I think with that comes a lot of responsibility.
320
See, I have set before you this day life and good, death and evil… I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse; therefore choose life.
321
At the heart of ‘The Famished Road’ is a philosophical conundrum – for me, an essential one: what is reality? Everybody’s reality is subjective; it’s conditioned by upbringing, ideas, temperament, religion, what’s happened to you.
322
Real religion is no religion at all.
323
The trouble with many men is that they have got just enough religion to make them miserable. If there is not joy in religion, you have got a leak in your religion.
324
The first time I sang in the church choir; two hundred people changed their religion.
325
Superstition is the religion of feeble minds.
326
The doctor didn’t want me to play golf anymore and was worried about me fly-fishing. Golf is something I enjoy, but fly-fishing is a different thing: That’s religion. Hunting is religion for me. I didn’t want to give those up.
327
No one cares about race or religion or nationality in space travel. We’re all just part of Team Human.
328
Passion is universal humanity. Without it religion, history, romance and art would be useless.
329
You can have religion with spirituality. You can also have religion without spirituality.
330
Religion flourishes in greater purity, without than with the aid of Government.
331
Our religion is the traditions of our ancestors – the dreams of our old men, given them in solemn hours of the night by the Great Spirit; and the visions of our sachems, and is written in the hearts of our people.
332
All religions must be tolerated… for every man must get to heaven in his own way.
333
It is wonderful how much time good people spend fighting the devil. If they would only expend the same amount of energy loving their fellow men, the devil would die in his own tracks of ennui.
334
I’m in favour of religion as a tamer of arrogance. For a Greek Orthodox, the idea of God as creator outside the human is not God in God’s terms. My God isn’t the God of George Bush.
335
I always say that people should not rush to change religions. There is real value in finding the spiritual resources you need in your home religion.
336
Some of you say religion makes people happy. So does laughing gas.
337
Women have been the most persecuted people throughout all of recorded history, more than any race or religion.
338
I’m a believer. I don’t go to church. I don’t belong to any particular religion, but I do believe in God. I couldn’t write what I write about and be creative without a certain form of belief.
339
A Religion of Evolution: that, when all is said and done, is what Man needs ever more explicitly if he is to survive and ‘superlive,’ as soon as he becomes conscious of his power to ultra-hominize himself and of his duty to do so.
340
My religion is based on truth and non-violence. Truth is my God. Non-violence is the means of realising Him.
341
I like to go to church. Religion is an important part in my life. It has helped me in bad moments.
342
The quarrels and divisions about religion were evils unknown to the heathen. The reason was because the religion of the heathen consisted rather in rites and ceremonies than in any constant belief.
343
In my view, the Christian religion is the most important and one of the first things in which all children, under a free government ought to be instructed.
344
I believe in a religion that believes in freedom. Any time I have to accept a religion that won’t let me fight a battle for my people, I say to hell with that religion.
345
Liberalism is a religion. Its tenets cannot be proved, its capacity for waste and destruction demonstrated. But it affords a feeling of spiritual rectitude at little or no cost.
346
It is possible that mankind is on the threshold of a golden age; but, if so, it will be necessary first to slay the dragon that guards the door, and this dragon is religion.
347
If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion, or force citizens to confess by word or act.
348
Meditation is certainly not a religion, cult, or spiritual path: it’s actually a very basic practice to reduce stress.
349
By religion, then, I understand a propitiation or conciliation of powers superior to man which are believed to direct and control the course of nature and of human life.
350
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.
351
Where it is a duty to worship the sun it is pretty sure to be a crime to examine the laws of heat.
352
One act of obedience is better than one hundred sermons.
353
Happiness is a mystery, like religion, and should never be rationalised.
354
Of all the tyrannies that affect mankind, tyranny in religion is the worst.
355
When Jews left Judaism, they didn’t stop being religious. They simply swapped God-based Judaism for godless secular humanism and leftism. For left-wing Jews, Judaism is their ethnicity; leftism is their religion.
356
My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind.
357
If you reject the food, ignore the customs, fear the religion and avoid the people, you might better stay at home.
358
I’m a student of world religion, so to me, it’s hugely important to have knowledge and to understand what people are doing.
359
I come from a Catholic religion, but I’m not Catholic.
360
I’m Christian. Growing up in Ethiopia, it’s half-Christian and half-Muslim. You grow up with Muslim kids. I’m very much aware of their religion.
361
I wasn’t really too hyped on religion. I don’t really believe in a religion like that. I just believe that there is a God. There’s just somebody up there that listens to me, and they can show me better if I talk to them and build a relationship with them.
362
I’m interested in spirituality and in religion and our relationship to the divine.
363
The more I study religions the more I am convinced that man never worshipped anything but himself.
364
Surfing is my religion, if I have one.
365
If there ever was a militant religion, it was that of early New England.
366
Where knowledge ends, religion begins.
367
Like religion, politics, and family planning, cereal is not a topic to be brought up in public. It’s too controversial.
368
There is no surer sign of decay in a country than to see the rites of religion held in contempt.
369
We must not enable anyone to impose his personal view regarding religion on others by force, oppression, or pressure.
370
The Church controlled so much in Ireland for so long. I’m not going to get into whether or not religion per se is a bad thing, but my point is the political aspect in Ireland was way out of kilter, and it wasn’t right.
371
I think I’m a humanist. I believe all humans should have equal rights to live, express, flourish, love and dissent, irrespective of their gender, caste, class, socio-economic strata, disabilities, political stance, religion or faith.
372
I don’t see why we should alienate anyone, regardless of sexual orientation, nationality, religion, ethnicity.
373
There’s a gullible side to the American people. They can be easily misled. Religion is the best device used to mislead them.
374
Religion and ritual can be vehicles for entering stillness. It says in Psalm 46:10, ‘Be still, and know that I am God.’ But they are still just vehicles. The Buddha called his teaching a raft: You don’t need to carry it around with you after you’ve crossed the river.
375
Every formula of every religion has in this age of reason, to submit to the acid test of reason and universal assent.
376
Religion is not changed as easily as a shirt.
377
There is no cure for the pride of a virtuous nation but pure religion.
378
I have no religion, and at times I wish all religions at the bottom of the sea. He is a weak ruler who needs religion to uphold his government; it is as if he would catch his people in a trap.
379
I remember at one point being in fellowship, and everyone used to wear the fish symbol; it said you were a Christian. So I asked my father, ‘Dad, why don’t you wear that at work?’ And he said, ‘Your religion should be in your actions.’ He set a great, great example.
380
I’m fascinated by religion, but I’m not particularly religious.
381
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.
382
Religion is not a department of life; it is something that enters into the whole of it.
383
Religion is more like response to a friend than it is like obedience to an expert.
384
I’m not really into religion.
385
I know too much about religion to be religious, so to speak, and I am not that stupid, either.
386
When push comes to shove, it ain’t the science that’s going to lift you up – it’s the belief, the spiritual side of life, that’s going to lift you up, no matter what religion you are.
387
The reason Buddhism can be so naturalised is because, stripped of its supernatural elements, its core teachings can be giving a sound, secular philosophical interpretation. In other words, it becomes a religion acceptable to the contemporary, naturalistic mind only when it ceases to be a religion.
388
When I got religion, I found some work to do to benefit somebody.
389
I think that religion is incredibly cruel, and I think that my biggest problem with being vegetarian, usually, is other vegetarians.
390
Religion and philosophy are to be preserved distinct. We are not to introduce divine revelations into philosophy, nor philosophical opinions into religion.
391
All humanity is passion; without passion, religion, history, novels, art would be ineffectual.
392
From the age of fifteen, dogma has been the fundamental principle of my religion: I know no other religion; I cannot enter into the idea of any other sort of religion; religion, as a mere sentiment, is to me a dream and a mockery.
393
I just hate one-dimensional portrayals of religion; it’s too cheap and easy to do, and ignores the nuances that go into having a belief system.
394
I love religion.
395
The day is not far off when the economic problem will take the back seat where it belongs, and the arena of the heart and the head will be occupied or reoccupied, by our real problems – the problems of life and of human relations, of creation and behavior and religion.
396
There is one thing higher than Royalty: and that is religion, which causes us to leave the world, and seek God.
397
I mean, I went to a Catholic boys’ school for a year, but that was to play hockey. Religion class was quite contentious for me.
398
Communism, like any other revealed religion, is largely made up of prophecies.
399
Boxing is a celebration of the lost religion of masculinity all the more trenchant for its being lost.
400
I don’t think Romney is wacky at all, but religion makes intelligent people say and do wacky things, believe and affirm crazy things. Left on his own, Romney would never have said something like the Garden Of Eden was in Missouri, and will be again.
401
There’s something called religion, and it was invented a long time ago by people who felt very out of control with their lives, who didn’t know… why the sun always rose over the mountains.
402
In other words, a person who is fanatic in matters of religion, and clings to certain ideas about the nature of God and the universe, becomes a person who has no faith at all.
403
I know the Bible is inspired because it inspires me.
404
Many churches of all persuasions are hiring research agencies to poll neighborhoods, asking what kind of church they prefer. Then the local churches design themselves to fit the desires of the people. True faith in God that demands selflessness is being replaced by trendy religion that serves the selfish.
405
Finding that no religion is based on facts and cannot be true, I began to reflect what must be the condition of mankind trained from infancy to believe in error.
406
If I or my soldiers have plundered or done injury to the houses or to the ministers of religion, I repent me of my sin – but it is not of Edward of England that I shall ask pardon.
407
I have a problem with religion that makes it so, like, ‘We are the ones. We are the chosen ones.’
408
Religion is to mysticism what popularization is to science.
409
True character arises from a deeper well than religion.
410
I’m not a practice religion freak. I didn’t grow up in a religious family, but I have a faith.
411
Religion comes from the word ‘re’ or again and ‘ligare’ meaning to bind or tie back. The purpose of religion is to unite the self with God or the creative force. Music, sacred spaces, and meaningful icons are the way we conjoin our minds with the transcendental.
412
A cult is a religion with no political power.
413
Those nations that say it’s a crime to preach your religion are making a terrible mistake. All they’re doing is driving underground other forms of spiritual intuitions and practices.
414
I wasn’t brought up with any religion at all. At school and in my early 20s, I read every religious text I could get my hands on – Buddhist scriptures, Hindu texts, the Qur’an, and the Bible. I wanted to feel like something made sense to me, that there was something sacred I could feel aligned with.
415
There are even more statues of Robert Burns than of any other figure in world literature. Indeed if we discount figures of religion, then only Christopher Columbus has more statues than he worldwide.
416
My life was changed in one breath from God.
417
The essence of America – that which really unites us – is not ethnicity, or nationality or religion – it is an idea – and what an idea it is: That you can come from humble circumstances and do great things.
418
I did study religion for a little while. I studied the Torah and the Holy Koran, Helios Biblos, which is considered by most people to be the Holy Bible. I just wanted to know, even with Buddhism and the Dalai Llama.
419
TV serves us most usefully when presenting junk-entertainment; it serves us most ill when it co-opts serious modes of discourse – news, politics, science, education, commerce, religion.
420
No power of government ought to be employed in the endeavor to establish any system or article of belief on the subject of religion.
421
In spite of the huge diversity in Malaysia in terms of religion, culture, race, ethnicity and so forth, we’ve really gone very far in developing this country.
422
You know, I get much more Jewish in Israel because I like the way that religion is done there.
423
Those who say religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion is.
424
Pictures may serve as helps to religion but are only an appendix to idolatry, for the people must be taught to believe in false gods and in the power of saints before they will learn to worship their images.
425
A religion without mystery must be a religion without God.
426
If I had to choose a religion, the sun as the universal giver of life would be my god.
427
I have the profoundest respect for people who behave in a generous way because of religion. But I come from a country where the misuse of religion has had catastrophic consequences. One must judge people not by what faith they proclaim but by what they do.
428
Religion is a means of exploitation employed by the strong against the weak; religion is a cloak of ambition, injustice and vice.
429
Religion is about turning untested belief into unshakable truth through the power of institutions and the passage of time.
430
The Sabbath is a weekly cathedral raised up in my dining room, in my family, in my heart.
431
I am an Anglo-Catholic in religion, a classicist in literature and a royalist in politics.
432
If faith is lost, there is no security and there is no life for him who does not adhere to religion.
433
Nothing is so fatal to religion as indifference.
434
A just laicism allows religious freedom. The state does not impose religion but rather gives space to religions with a responsibility toward civil society, and therefore it allows these religions to be factors in building up society.
435
We know too much, and are convinced of too little. Our literature is a substitute for religion, and so is our religion.
436
Religious tolerance is something we should all practice; however, there have been more persecution and atrocities committed in the name of religion and religious freedom than anything else.
437
I don’t think that people accept the fact that life doesn’t make sense. I think it makes people terribly uncomfortable. It seems like religion and myth were invented against that, trying to make sense out of it.
438
Nobody can deny but religion is a comfort to the distressed, a cordial to the sick, and sometimes a restraint on the wicked; therefore whoever would argue or laugh it out of the world without giving some equivalent for it ought to be treated as a common enemy.
439
I don’t have family in this business. I had two parents that loved me, that worked 24-7, and this is what instilled hard work in me. So you hear the stories about my upbringing, my religion.
440
I believe there is a moral sense and a global ethic that commands attention from people of every religion and every faith, and people of no faith. But I think what’s new is that we now have the capacity to communicate instantaneously across frontiers right across the world.
441
God’s love is too great to be confined to any one side of a conflict or to any one religion.
442
Religion promotes the divine discontent within oneself, so that one tries to make oneself a better person and draw oneself closer to God.
443
I didn’t want to be like everybody else. Art was my religion.
444
To have dominion by religion, is to have dominion over men’s souls, thus over their very spiritual life, and to use the Divine things, which are in their religion, as the means.
445
If Christians will obey the instructions given to them by Christ and his inspired apostles, they will adorn the religion of the Bible, and save themselves much perplexity and severe trials, which they attribute to their afflictions in consequence of believing unpopular truth.
446
The Indians may have in their religion and culture a reverence for the land. But then they get into the pressures created by modern society. Unless they are reasonably well-educated, they can’t deal with them.
447
That which we call the Hindu religion is really the Eternal religion because it embraces all others.
448
The first canon of my religion is that you shouldn’t try to convince anybody to believe like you do.
449
If we must not act save on a certainty, we ought not to act on religion, for it is not certain. But how many things we do on an uncertainty, sea voyages, battles!
450
If I were going to convert to any religion I would probably choose Catholicism because it at least has female saints and the Virgin Mary.
451
In human history, we are going from knowledge to omniscience, from potence to omnipotence, from ethics and religion to righteousness. So, in my view, God comes at the end of this long process. This may not happen in our lifetimes or even in the lifetime of our species.
452
Rivers, ponds, lakes and streams – they all have different names, but they all contain water. Just as religions do – they all contain truths.
453
Disturbances in society are never more fearful than when those who are stirring up the trouble can use the pretext of religion to mask their true designs.
454
The marvel of the Bhagavad-Gita is its truly beautiful revelation of life’s wisdom which enables philosophy to blossom into religion.
455
I am thankful I can see much to admire in all religions.
456
Fear of death makes us devoid both of valour and religion. For want of valour is want of religious faith.
457
If religion were true, its followers would not try to bludgeon their young into an artificial conformity; but would merely insist on their unbending quest for truth, irrespective of artificial backgrounds or practical consequences.
458
Man seeks to learn, and man kills himself because of the loss of cohesion in his religious society; he does not kill himself because of his learning. It is certainly not the learning he acquires that disorganizes religion; but the desire for knowledge wakens because religion becomes disorganized.
459
The Japanese don’t have a specific religion, but a spirituality. A cap, shoes, and a table have a spirituality. When you eat an apple, you don’t say you eat it: you say, ‘I am receiving it.’ Kind of like you are thanking the food.
460
Fear of things invisible in the natural seed of that which everyone in himself calleth religion.
461
You’re always going to have extremists in every religion.
462
Bad religion is arrogant, self-righteous, dogmatic and intolerant. And so is bad science. But unlike religious fundamentalists, scientific fundamentalists do not realize that their opinions are based on faith. They think they know the truth.
463
Government is a true religion: it has its dogmas, its mysteries, its priests. To submit it to the individual discussion is to destroy it; it is given life only through the national mind, that is to say, by political faith, which is a creed.
464
Too often, customary practices and discrimination on the basis of gender, ethnicity, race, religion, social status, or class are the root sources of pervasive inequality in many countries.
465
There seems to be a terrible misunderstanding on the part of a great many people to the effect that when you cease to believe you may cease to behave.
466
Comparing science and religion isn’t like comparing apples and oranges – it’s more like apples and sewing machines.
467
Another important historical factor is the fact that this already very simple religion was further simplified and purified by the early philosophers of ancient China. Our first great philosopher was a founder of naturalism; and our second great philosopher was an agnostic.
468
I’m a practicing Christian – and I’m going to keep practicing till I get it right – but I don’t feel everyone has to practice the same religion that I do. You have a right to worship who you choose and how you choose to.
469
Religion is not man’s relationship to God, it is man’s relationship to man.
470
Religion and slavery are incompatible.
471
Gentleness, self-sacrifice and generosity are the exclusive possession of no one race or religion.
472
Fascism is a religion. The twentieth century will be known in history as the century of Fascism.
473
One’s own religion is after all a matter between oneself and one’s Maker and no one else’s.
474
No truth is more evident to my mind than that the Christian religion must be the basis of any government intended to secure the rights and privileges of a free people.
475
There is not enough religion in the world even to destroy religion.
476
I was born and raised Catholic, so it’s in my blood. I don’t go to church… I was born and raised Catholic, which is about the extent of my religion. My parents made one request: that I have my first Holy Communion.
477
Where I think people are being offensive to religion in this country – whichever religion that might be, but particularly the one I and many other Christians subscribe to – well, we will just call it out, and we will demand the same respect that people should provide to all religions.
478
Do you think that God will punish them for not practicing a religion which he did not reveal to them?
479
Religion is interesting because it brings out the best and the worst in humanity. It can be a source of good deeds, whether it’s people from different spiritual backgrounds coming together to help other people in need after a crisis. But it’s also a cause for war and bloodshed.
480
Religion is everywhere. There are no human societies without it, whether they acknowledge it as a religion or not.
481
For God so loved the World that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
482
God requireth not a uniformity of religion.
483
Morality is of the highest importance – but for us, not for God.
484
Prayer does not change God, but it changes him who prays.
485
What brings you closer to God is being in service to others. I think any religion or spiritual way of life will indicate that service to others will lead to a connection with a higher power.
486
Indians today are governed by two different ideologies. Their political ideal set in the preamble of the Constitution affirms a life of liberty, equality and fraternity. Their social ideal embodied in their religion denies them.
487
Myself, first of all, I am a Jew. And that is the most important thing for me.
488
The greatest tragedy in mankind’s entire history may be the hijacking of morality by religion.
489
Religion is the organization of spirituality into something that became the hand maiden of conquerors. Nearly all religions were brought to people and imposed on people by conquerors, and used as the framework to control their minds.
490
All religions and all communities have the same rights, and it is my responsibility to ensure their complete and total protection. My government will not tolerate or accept any discrimination based on caste, creed and religion.
491
Sex is the ersatz or substitute religion of the 20th Century.
492
What people are really after is, what is my stance on religion or spirituality or God? And I would say, if I find a word that came closest, it would be agnostic.
493
The religion of the name of the seas will triumph against the sect of the son of Adaluncatif; The obstinate, lamented sect will be fearful of the two wounded by Aleph and Aleph.
494
I’m fascinated by the business of belief, obviously, because it’s so ever present with humanity anyway. And, you know, when you have science, which constantly talks of proofs, you have religion, which constantly talks of beliefs and faith and so on.
495
There are several reasons why Russians view the oppressive state positively. First, in the Russian Orthodox religion, there is an understanding of authority as something sent by God.
496
India is the meeting place of the religions and among these Hinduism alone is by itself a vast and complex thing, not so much a religion as a great diversified and yet subtly unified mass of spiritual thought, realization and aspiration.
497
I know it’s very idealistic and utopian, but I believe we need to just let everyone not be judged in terms of religion, groups or nations or region.
498
I’m literally fighting for the equality of every man, woman and child regardless of race, religion, color, creed, and sexual orientation and here to spread a message of peace, love, and positivity.
499
To die for a religion is easier than to live it absolutely.
500
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.
501
Before anything else, I’m a Muslim. As a Muslim, I try to comply with the requirements of my religion. I have a responsibility to God, who created me, and I try to fulfill that responsibility. But I try now very much to keep this away from my political life, to keep it private.
502
Religion leaves no room for human complexity.
503
I learned early on, stay away from politics, stay away from religion and don’t talk about sports. Those three right there will get you in trouble.
504
How can we educators claim credit for understanding, let alone teaching, the ‘global mind’ without a single course on the impact of religion on every day life?
505
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.
506
Religion is never the problem; it’s the people who use it to gain power.
507
You cannot believe in God until you believe in yourself.
508
But let’s just say, I’m Irish. I grew up in the 1950s. Religion had a very tight iron fist.
509
As women, we may not be a minority, but there is a bond that we all share. It is not a bond of geography. Or religion. Or culture. It is a bond of shared experience – experiences that only women go through and struggles that only women face.
510
For as Jews, the problem happens to be more urgent and vital than for others; because the destruction of religion on America will involve the destruction also of the religious training of freedom; and with that our civil liberties.
511
I consider myself a religious person. God is something very personal with me and I don’t flaunt religion in conversation with others.
512
Since all power from the seventh century on was only legitimated by religion, political forces and economic interests pushed for the fabrication of false traditions.
513
The truth is that killing innocent people is always wrong – and no argument or excuse, no matter how deeply believed, can ever make it right. No religion on earth condones the killing of innocent people; no faith tradition tolerates the random killing of our brothers and sisters on this earth.
514
I think of religion as man’s attempt to reach God, and you can’t do that.
515
We live in a society that wants to label you with a color, sexuality, religion, or ethnicity. It divides us, but it also allows us to find pride in our identity.
516
When obedience to the Divine precepts keeps pace with knowledge, in the mind of any man, that man is a Christian; and when the fruits of Christianity are produced, that man is a disciple of our blessed Lord, let his profession of religion be what it may.
517
I don’t practise any religion but I am deeply interested in the answers that mankind has come up with to explain the human situation.
518
God is a metaphor for that which transcends all levels of intellectual thought. It’s as simple as that.
519
The difference between a cult and a religion, of course, lies in extremity.
520
If, then, you are looking for the way by which you should go, take Christ, because He Himself is the way.
521
Religion in its humility restores man to his only dignity, the courage to live by grace.
522
Balenciaga was my religion. Since I’m a believer, for me, there’s Balenciaga, and the good Lord.
523
Moreover, behind this vague tendency to treat religion as a side issue in modern life, there exists a strong body of opinion that is actively hostile to Christianity and that regards the destruction of positive religion as absolutely necessary to the advance of modern culture.
524
I do not believe that any particular religion has any monopoly on salvation.
525
Islam is a religion. It is not an ideology. For a Muslim, there is no such thing as to be against modernity. Why should a Muslim not be a modern person? I, as a Muslim, fulfill all the requirements of my religion, and I live in a democratic, social state.
526
It was part of your religion to hate the British.
527
Those in the west who dismiss the repressiveness of laws against women in countries like Iran, no matter how benign their intentions, present a condescending view not just of the religion but also of women living in Muslim majority countries, as if the desire for choice and happiness is the monopoly of women in the west.
528
The difference must be distinguished between worship and respect. Islam orders you to obey and respect, as long as you are not worshiping anything other than God… Islam is a religion of peace. You don’t attack. You explain.
529
Religion must mainly be a matter of principles only. It cannot be a matter of rules. The moment it degenerates into rules, it ceases to be a religion, as it kills responsibility which is an essence of the true religious act.
530
The world is divided into men who have wit and no religion and men who have religion and no wit.
531
All theory of modernity in sociology suggests that the more modernity there is, the less religion. In my theory we can realize that this is wrong: atheism is only one belief system among many.
532
Every theistic religion, including Catholicism, Mainline Protestantism, Judaism, Mormonism, and Islam, has traditionally held homosexual congress in moral opprobrium.
533
Twelve-step promotes spirituality, not religion. It gives a practical, day-to-day spirituality that tells me what I can and cannot control. There is room to be imperfect and to be someone who struggles to find God.
534
You think that religion is a thing that is there to help you and to see you through life, and then you wake up one morning and find the entire Irish situation, the civil war that’s based on religion.
535
Religion is of general and public concern, and on its support depend, in great measure, the peace and good order of government, the safety and happiness of the people.
536
God is to be worshipped as the one beloved, dearer than everything in this and next life.
537
Religion is capable of driving people to such dangerous folly that faith seems to me to qualify as a kind of mental illness.
538
Christianity helps us face the music even when we don’t like the tune.
539
It is easy enough to be friendly to one’s friends. But to befriend the one who regards himself as your enemy is the quintessence of true religion. The other is mere business.
540
When I admire the wonders of a sunset or the beauty of the moon, my soul expands in the worship of the creator.
541
Communism introduced into the world a substitute for true religion. It is a counterfeit of the gospel plan.
542
Religion is extremely important in this democracy – so important that it occupies a prime position in the Bill of Rights.
543
Needless to say, oftentimes a ‘religion’ is not needed to breed extremism. People breed it all by themselves, oftentimes with the subjective morality of modern secularism breeding the worst kind.
544
U2 have a lot of religion, also people like Johnny Cash and Elvis. Those people weren’t shy about it – it’s nice there are people who’ve come before that were open about it.
545
The problem with writing about religion is that you run the risk of offending sincerely religious people, and then they come after you with machetes.
546
The more powerful and original a mind, the more it will incline towards the religion of solitude.
547
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.
548
Unless we place our religion and our treasure in the same thing, religion will always be sacrificed.
549
Fashion is almost like a religion, for me at least.
550
Socialism is the religion people get when they lose their religion.
551
The major obstacle to a religious renewal is the intellectual classes, who are highly influential and tend to view religion as primitive superstition. They believe that science has left atheism as the only respectable intellectual stance.
552
I think religion has caused so much catastrophe in the world.
553
I increasingly see organized religion as actually my enemy. They treat me as their enemy. Not all Christians, of course. Not all Jews, not all Muslims.
554
No man ever believes that the Bible means what it says: He is always convinced that it says what he means.
555
Human beings must be known to be loved; but Divine beings must be loved to be known.
556
Being religious means asking passionately the question of the meaning of our existence and being willing to receive answers, even if the answers hurt.
557
We would here state that there are now three things necessary to be done in order to save China from revolution. The first is to maintain the reigning Dynasty; the second is to conserve the Holy Religion; and the third is to protect the Chinese race.
558
I’d be perfectly happy with a mathematically precise description of how time began. I see science and religion as being two completely different things. I don’t see science as relevant to the question of whether or not there’s a God.
559
Religion is the state of being grasped by an ultimate concern, a concern which qualifies all other concerns as preliminary and which itself contains the answer to the question of a meaning of our life.
560
All too many Muslims fail to grasp Islam, which teaches one to be lenient towards others and to understand their value systems, knowing that these are tolerated by Islam as a religion.
561
I don’t call myself a Buddhist. I’m a free spirit. I believe I’m here on earth to admire and enjoy it; that’s my religion.
562
Skeptical scrutiny is the means, in both science and religion, by which deep thoughts can be winnowed from deep nonsense.
563
If organized religion is the opium of the masses, then disorganized religion is the marijuana of the lunatic fringe.
564
Muslims must believe that all power, success and victory comes from God alone.
565
For that again, is what all manner of religion essentially is: childish dependency.
566
Religion is the search for ultimate meaning.
567
Religion asks you to believe things without questioning, and technology and science always encourage you to ask hard questions and why it is important in science and technology. So I was always interested in science and technology.
568
Galileo was no idiot. Only an idiot could believe that science requires martyrdom – that may be necessary in religion, but in time a scientific result will establish itself.
569
The freedoms of religion, thought and speech are all fundamental rights Canadians not only enjoy, we have fought for them at home and abroad. We know that a vibrant democracy means that on some issues, Canadians will understandably have different views.
570
My grandad’s a gospel singer, and his children were singers, too. But I don’t believe in God in the same way… not religion; it breaks us up too much. The same with musical styles – it breaks people up. I believe they are all one thing – why not put them together?
571
I’m just sick of the way things are. We’re in an age in which we can’t live without accepting the logic of the market. Contemporary politics is all about short-term pragmatism. We have abandoned religion and philosophy… What we have left is the automatisation of doing what the market tells us.
572
My philosophy is to do the best you can for somebody. Help. It’s not just what do you for yourself. It’s how you treat people decently. The golden rule. There isn’t big anything better than the golden rule. It’s in every major religion in one language or another.
573
Communism has decided against God, against Christ, against the Bible, and against all religion.
574
Let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.
575
Selfishness is the only real atheism; aspiration, unselfishness, the only real religion.
576
There’s no way that scientists can ever rule out religion, or even have anything significant to say about the abstract idea of a divine creator.
577
I should like to repeat what I stated recently in the Jeddah Economic Forum in Saudi Arabia: It won’t be the religion, but rather the world-view of some of its followers that shall be made current.
578
I was brought up a Muslim and I respect the religion I was born into, but I don’t practise it. However, I do believe in thanking God for my happy life.
579
Homophobia is not the monopoly of any one country, culture, or religion.
580
My religion is inclusivity.
581
There’s no reason to bring religion into it. I think we ought to have as great a regard for religion as we can, so as to keep it out of as many things as possible.
582
Religion is the solid basis of good morals; therefore education should teach the precepts of religion, and the duties of man toward God.
583
We have convinced over one billion members of the Islamic faith that we are prejudiced against their religion, that we would deny them freedom of religion, that we want suppress their culture and invade their governments.
584
If God existed, and if He cared for humankind, He would never have given us religion.
585
Energy, energy? Energy is, is, it’s nothing more than a lot of new age hokum masquerading as religion.
586
We are punished by our sins, not for them.
587
If you don’t like the word ‘religion,’ you can replace it with ‘ideology’ – it’s largely the same thing. At the heart of both religion and ideology is the question of authority and where authority is coming from.
588
Same-sex marriage is not the final nail in the coffin for traditional marriage. It is just another road sign toward the substitution of government for God. Every moral discussion now pits the wisest moral arbiters among us – the Supreme Court, President Obama – against traditional religion.
589
Most people don’t want to talk about politics and religion. They say, ‘Let’s talk about something else.’
590
No matter your religion or what your political views are, I think there’s one thing we can all agree on. Most human beings are not meant to be alone. I know I’m not.
591
All religion, my friend, is simply evolved out of fraud, fear, greed, imagination, and poetry.
592
Freedom of speech wasn’t won by being nice, it has been won by struggle with religion.
593
I am fully aware that cricket is like a second religion in Pakistan.
594
Religion is the masterpiece of the art of animal training, for it trains people as to how they shall think.
595
I’m not a New Age person, but I do believe in meditation, and for that reason I’ve always liked the Buddhist religion. When I’ve been to Japan, I’ve been to Buddhist temples and meditated, and I found that rewarding.
596
I do not find it easy to articulate thoughts about religion. I remain the sort of person who turns off ‘Thought for the Day’ when it comes on the radio.
597
I feel like ‘Leftovers’ is dealing with subject matter that’s kind of taboo when you’re talking about religion and faith. They found a way to make it mysterious and intriguing without making people upset.
598
I say you don’t need religion, or political ideology, to understand human nature. Science reveals that human nature is greedy and selfish, altruistic and helpful.
599
Mike Huckabee and indeed many of the Christian conservatives in the U.S. have far more in common with the Muslim Brotherhood than they’d like to admit, in that all of them very much want to see a role of religion in society.
