RELIGION QUOTES II
quotations about religion
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It's not the work or the personality of the founder of a religion that's important, but what its followers do with what they learn.
CHARLES DE LINT
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The Little Country
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Any religion is a shadow of God. But the shadows of God are not God.
MARGARET ATWOOD
The Year of the Flood
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
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
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 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
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
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
A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.
ALBERT EINSTEIN
New York Times Magazine, November 9, 1930
The primary aim of all religions and philosophical systems is to furnish an antidote to the certainty of death.
GEORGE BERKELEY
A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge
That's me in the spot light, losing my religion.
R.E.M.
"Losing My Religion"
Religious beliefs prepare a kind of landscape of images, an illusory milieu favorable to every hallucination and every delirium.
MICHEL FOUCAULT
Madness & Civilization
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
I came to the conclusion long ago ... that all religions were true and also that all had some error in them, and whilst I hold by my own, I should hold others as dear as Hinduism. So we can only pray, if we are Hindus, not that a Christian should become a Hindu ... But our innermost prayer should be a Hindu should be a better Hindu, a Muslim a better Muslim, a Christian a better Christian.
MAHATMA GANDHI
Young India, January 19, 1928
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
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
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
Religion, n. A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable.
AMBROSE BIERCE
The Devil's Dictionary
What a man wants with religion in these breadless times, surpasses my comprehension.
MARK TWAIN
letter to Orion Clemens, March 1860
There are a whole lot of religious people in America, including the majority of Democrats. When we abandon the field of religious discourse--when we ignore the debate about what it means to be a good Christian or Muslim or Jew; when we discuss religion only in the negative sense of where or how it should not be practiced, rather than in the positive sense of what it tells us about our obligations toward one another; when we shy away from religious venues and religious broadcasts because we assume that we will be unwelcome--others will fill the vacuum. And those who do are likely to be those with the most insular views of faith, or who cynically use religion to justify partisan ends.
BARACK OBAMA
Audacity of Hope