RELIGION QUOTES III
quotations about religion
I have never been able to soothe myself with the sugary delusions of religion; for these things stand convicted of the utmost absurdity in light of modern scientific knowledge.
H. P. LOVECRAFT
letter to Reinhardt Kleiner, September 14, 1919
I'm more spiritual than I am religious. I don't go to church; I go to the beach.
PAULA DEEN
Good Housekeeping, November 2009
God has no religion.
HENRY WHITNEY BELLOWS
Re-statements of Christian Doctrine
Religion, n. A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable.
AMBROSE BIERCE
The Devil's Dictionary
If the people were a little more ignorant, astrology would flourish -- if a little more enlightened, religion would perish.
ROBERT GREEN INGERSOLL
Some Mistakes of Moses
Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind.
ALBERT EINSTEIN
speech at the Union Theological Seminary in New York, 1941
Religion is an illusion and it derives its strength from the fact that it falls in with our instinctual desires.
SIGMUND FREUD
New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis
Of all the animosities which have existed among mankind, those which are caused by a difference of sentiments in religion appear to be the most inveterate and distressing, and ought most to be deprecated.
GEORGE WASHINGTON
letter to Edward Newenham, October 20, 1792
Religious ideas have the fate of melodies, which, once set afloat in the world, are taken up by all sorts of instruments, some of them woefully coarse, feeble, or out of tune, until people are in danger of crying out that the melody itself is detestable.
GEORGE ELIOT
Janet's Repentance
This dull river has a deep religion of its own; so, let us trust, has the dullest human soul, though, perhaps, unconsciously.
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE
American Note-Books, August 7, 1842
Religion ought not to be a speculative, metaphysical system of belief; but a compendium of moral and practical duties, embracing every function of man, supporting the right use of these functions, and prohibiting the abuse of them as the will of the Deity.
JAMES PLATT
Platt's Essays
I count religion but a childish toy,
And hold there is no sin but ignorance.
CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE
The Jew of Malta
In terms of the evolutionary process religion is such a waste of resources.
NICK HARDING
News Talk, January 25, 2016
The beginning of religion, more precisely its content, is the concept of religion itself, that God is the absolute truth, the truth of all things, and subjectively that religion alone is the absolutely true knowledge.
GEORG WILHELM FRIEDRICH HEGEL
Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion
He who leaves religion to his last day, reserves only the bran for God, while he gives the fine flour to the Devil.
JOHN THORNTON
Maxims and Directions for Youth
Don't try to tear down other people's religion about their ears. Build up your own perfect structure of truth, and invite your listeners to enter in and enjoy it's glories.
BRIGHAM YOUNG
attributed, The Life Story of Brigham Young
That's me in the spot light, losing my religion.
R.E.M.
"Losing My Religion"
By these two Things Religion is recommended to us, above all other things whatsoever: 1. By the Satisfaction we thereby enjoy in Life; and 2. By the Expectation we have thereby at Death.
BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE
Moral and Religious Aphorisms
Religion is based, I think, primarily and mainly upon fear. It is partly the terror of the unknown and partly, as I have said, the wish to feel that you have a kind of elder brother who will stand by you in all your troubles and disputes. Fear is the basis of the whole thing -- fear of the mysterious, fear of defeat, fear of death. Fear is the parent of cruelty, and therefore it is no wonder if cruelty and religion have gone hand-in-hand. It is because fear is at the basis of those two things. In this world we can now begin a little to understand things, and a little to master them by the help of science, which has forced its way step by step against the Christian religion, against the churches, and against the opposition of all the old precepts. Science can help us to get over this craven fear in which mankind has lived for so many generations. Science can teach us, and I think our own hearts can teach us, no longer to look around for imaginary supports, no longer to invent allies in the sky, but rather to look to our own efforts here below to make this world a fit place to live in, instead of the sort of place that the churches in all these centuries have made it.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
"Fear, the Foundation of Religion", Why I Am Not a Christian
What a man wants with religion in these breadless times, surpasses my comprehension.
MARK TWAIN
letter to Orion Clemens, March 1860