RELIGION QUOTES II
quotations about religion
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
For to laugh is as religious as to weep; and smiles may bring us into the companionship of the Father no less than tears.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Seeking After God
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 am determined my children shall be brought up in their father's religion, if they can find out what it is.
CHARLES LAMB
letter to John Chambers, 1817
Religion is a system of wishful illusions together with a disavowal of reality, such as we find nowhere else but in a state of blissful hallucinatory confusion. Religion's eleventh commandment is "Thou shalt not question."
SIGMUND FREUD
The Future of an Illusion
Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind.
ALBERT EINSTEIN
speech at the Union Theological Seminary in New York, 1941
The white man is very clever. He came quietly and peaceably with his religion. We were amused at his foolishness and allowed him to stay. Now he has won our brothers, and our clan can no longer act like one. He has put a knife on the things that held us together and we have fallen apart.
CHINUA ACHEBE
Things Fall Apart
True religion hath done only good in the world; but superstition, which is the counterfeit of religion, hath done the worst and the greatest mischief.
BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE
Moral and Religious Aphorisms
A little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion.
FRANCIS BACON
Essays
I say people who feel they must have a faith or religion in order to face life are showing a kind of cowardice, which in any other sphere would be considered contemptible. But when it is in the religious sphere it is thought admirable, and I cannot admire cowardice whatever sphere it is in.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Bertrand Russell Speaks His Mind
People still talk of getting religion, as though it were a peculiar kind of coin, alone receivable at the heavenly toll-gate; of experiencing religion, as though it were experiencing an electric shock; of an interest in Christ, as a shareholder does of his stock in some prosperous venture.
HENRY WHITNEY BELLOWS
Re-statements of Christian Doctrine
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
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.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
"The Idea of Righteousness", Has Religion Made Useful Contributions to Civilization?
A man that turns to God in his old age is like a child that eats a peach and generously offers its mother the stone.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought
All religions, with their gods, their demi-gods, and their prophets, their messiahs and their saints, were created by the prejudiced fancy of men who had not attained the full development and full possession of their faculties.
MIKHAIL BAKUNIN
God and the State
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
Everyone who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that some spirit is manifest in the laws of the universe, one that is vastly superior to that of man. In this way the pursuit of science leads to a religious feeling of a special sort, which is surely quite different from the religiosity of someone more naive.
ALBERT EINSTEIN
letter to Phyllis (a child), January 24, 1936
Religion, n. A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable.
AMBROSE BIERCE
The Devil's Dictionary
Any religion is a shadow of God. But the shadows of God are not God.
MARGARET ATWOOD
The Year of the Flood
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