RELIGION QUOTES VIII

quotations about religion

Every religious revolution has been the struggle of thought to gain another step in the ladder that reaches to heaven.

SABINE BARING-GOULD

Christianity

Tags: Sabing Baring-Gould


If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time.

BERTRAND RUSSELL

"Is There a God?", The Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell

Tags: Bertrand Russell


Religion is like a time bomb which can explode, triggering chaos and catastrophe if it is sensationalised for political purposes.

SULTAN NAZRIN SHAH

"Religion is like time bomb if abused", The Star, January 25, 2016


Religion is a crutch for people not strong enough to stand up to the unknown without help.

ROBERT A. HEINLEIN

The Notebooks of Lazarus Long

Tags: Robert A. Heinlein


Well, religion is a collective insanity, the more powerful because it is traditional folly, and because its origin is lost in the most remote antiquity. As collective insanity it has penetrated to the very depths of the public and private existence of the peoples; it is incarnate in society; it has become, so to speak, the collective soul and thought. Every man is enveloped in it from his birth; he sucks it in with his mother's milk, absorbs it with all that he touches, all that he sees. He is so exclusively fed upon it, so poisoned and penetrated by it in all his being, that later, however powerful his natural mind, he has to make unheard-of efforts to deliver himself from it, and even then never completely succeeds.

MIKHAIL BAKUNIN

God and the State

Tags: Mikhail Bakunin


Over the years my religion has changed and my spirituality has evolved. Religion and spirituality are very different, but people often confuse the two. Some things cannot be taught, but they can be awakened in the heart. Spirituality is recognizing the divine light that is within us all. It doesn't belong to any particular religion; it belongs to everyone.

MUHAMMAD ALI

The Soul of a Butterfly

Tags: Muhammad Ali


Religion, like the law of gravity, binds each element of our nature to its own orbit. It gives the peace of a harmonious character, where the moral and intellectual powers hold their lawful spheres, and the appetites fill their restricted place, and the law of purity and holiness reigns supreme.

E. H. CHAPIN

Living Words


I have no objection to any person's religion, be it what it may, so long as that person does not kill or insult any other person, because that other person don't believe it also. But when a man's religion becomes really frantic; when it is a positive torment to him; and, in fine, makes this earth of ours an uncomfortable inn to lodge in; then I think it high time to take that individual aside and argue the point with him.

HERMAN MELVILLE

Moby Dick

Tags: Herman Melville


It's always been you know, religion that has been the primary impediment to actual relationship with God, because it creates a mythology about performance -- that you can perform your way into the appeasement of the deity. And you know, when you're born inside the cultural framework that I was, and you're born inside the religious traditions that I was, that becomes your understanding of spirituality: That it's about trying to please God. So, it's really not about God at all; it's about our ability to perform according to whatever the expectations are.

WM. PAUL YOUNG

interview, "Your Daily Bread", Rare, December 10, 2013

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Perhaps no one religion contains all the truth of the world. Perhaps every religion contains fragments of the truth and it is our responsibility to identify those fragments and piece them together.

CHRISTOPHER PAOLINI

Brisingr

Tags: Christopher Paolini


Difference of opinion is advantageous in religion. The several sects perform the office of a censor morum over each other. Is uniformity attainable? Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch toward uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one-half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites.

THOMAS JEFFERSON

Notes on Virginia

Tags: Thomas Jefferson


A true religious instinct never deprived man of one single joy; mournful faces and a sombre aspect are the conventional affectations of the weak-minded

HOSEA BALLOU

Treasury of Thought

Tags: Hosea Ballou


Religion must be a punishment, because nobody gets religion who does not have a bad conscience.

AUGUST STRINDBERG

attributed, Prophets of Dissent

Tags: August Strindberg


True religion consists not only in feelings towards God, but also in duties towards men.

ANNIE BESANT

My Path to Atheism

Tags: Annie Besant


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.

H. L. MENCKEN

Minority Report

Tags: H. L. Mencken


If a person's religious ideas correspond not with your own, love him nevertheless. How different would yours have been, had the chance of birth placed you in Tartary or India!

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

"Declaration of Rights"

Tags: Percy Bysshe Shelley


Religion sows within us the seeds of an undying joy that fails not when outward means of happiness fail, and sorrows darken, and cares appall. It sheds abroad a holy serenity in the heart, and imparts a calm lustre to the brow.... It reveals new sources of happiness. It makes the spire of grass and the star beautiful ministers of delight.

E. H. CHAPIN

Living Words

Tags: E. H. Chapin


In a world so empty of human life, there was comfort in the thought that an invisible realm of spirits was aware of their existence, cared about their actions, and perhaps directed their steps. Even a stern or inimical spirit who cared enough to demand certain actions of appeasement was better than the heartless disregard of a harsh and indifferent world, in which their lives were entirely in their own hands, with no one else to turn to in time of need, not even in their thoughts.

JEAN M. AUEL

The Plains of Passage

Tags: Jean M. Auel


Where the questions of religion are concerned people are guilty of every possible kind of insincerity and intellectual misdemeanor.

SIGMUND FREUD

The Future of an Illusion


The Church must be intelligible to the simple as well as to the shrewd.

ROBERT HUGH BENSON

A City Set on a Hill

Tags: Robert Hugh Benson