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Quotes with tag Religion:

AuthorQuoteRank
C. S. LewisAim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither. 101
Christopher HitchensReligion is part of the human make-up. It's also part of our cultural and intellectual history. Religion was our first attempt at literature, the texts, our first attempt at cosmology, making sense of where we are in the universe, our first attempt at health care, believing in faith healing, our first attempt at philosophy.101
Richard DawkinsI am against religion because it teaches us to be satisfied with not understanding the world.101
Alfred Russel WallaceI am thankful I can see much to admire in all religions.101
Ernestine RoseIt is an interesting and demonstrable fact, that all children are atheists and were religion not inculcated into their minds, they would remain so.101
Feisal Abdul RaufThe 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.101
Frank MurphyFreedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of religion all have a double aspect - freedom of thought and freedom of action.101
Friedrich SchleiermacherThe essence of religion consists in the feeling of an absolute dependence.101
Hugo BlackA union of government and religion tends to destroy government and degrade religion.101
James A. MichenerIf you reject the food, ignore the customs, fear the religion and avoid the people, you might better stay at home.101
Joseph Smith, Jr.I told the brethren that the Book of Mormon was the most correct of any book on earth, and the keystone of our religion, and a man would get nearer to God by abiding by its precepts, than by any other book.101
Kirk CameronIt is my goal to love everyone. I hate no one. Regardless of their race, religion, their proclivities, the desire of their heart and how they want to live their life and the decisions that they make. I can even respect people's decisions and lifestyle choices just as I hope they have the courtesy to respect my decisions and my choices.101
Lewis MumfordThe 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.101
Madonna CicconeBe strong, believe in freedom and in God, love yourself, understand your sexuality, have a sense of humor, masturbate, don't judge people by their religion, color or sexual habits, love life and your family.101
Naftali BennettIn a perfect world, there would be freedom of religion and freedom for all religions to exercise their religion everywhere.101
Okky MadasariWomen become the objects of rules; they are repressed and lose their rights in the name of religion, or they lose their freedom in the name of tradition, while the state legitimates this foolishness with laws.101
Oleg KulikI would like to reconcile the church and the circus. I wanted to transform the theatre... to get my message across that there is only one God - the living man - the person sitting next to you. That is my religion. I believe that there is a sense to life.101
Oscar FernandesTerrorism should be seen in the light of the country's security and not from the narrow perspective of caste, creed and religion.101
Penn JilletteBehaving 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.101
RamakrishnaIt is easy to talk on religion, but difficult to practice it.101
Roger EbertParents and schools should place great emphasis on the idea that it is all right to be different. Racism and all the other 'isms' grow from primitive tribalism, the instinctive hostility against those of another tribe, race, religion, nationality, class or whatever. You are a lucky child if your parents taught you to accept diversity.101
Salman RushdieThere is nothing intrinsic linking any religion with any act of violence. The crusades don't prove that Christianity was violent. The Inquisition doesn't prove that Christianity tortures people. But that Christianity did torture people.101
Serj TankianWe first fought... in the name of religion, then Communism, and now in the name of drugs and terrorism. Our excuses for global domination always change.101
Ulrich BeckThe basic assumption of the secular society is that modernity overcomes religion.101
Wilhelm DiltheyThe knife of historical relativism... which has cut to pieces all metaphysics and religion must also bring about healing.101
William AmesFrom faith, hope, and love, the virtues of religion referring to God, there arises a double act which bears on the spiritual communion exercised between God and us; the hearing of the word and prayer.101
AthanasiusThe Son of God became man so that we might become God.101
Bjorn UlvaeusThe UN declaration on human rights must always be first in line before religion or other cultural habits, in case of any conflict between them.101
Charles EastmanMore than this, even in those white men who professed religion we found much inconsistency of conduct. They spoke much of spiritual things, while seeking only the material.101
Gene ClarkZen, per se, is not just an art, it's not just a religion, it's a realisation.101
John Henry NewmanFrom 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.101
John Shelby SpongAll religion seems to need to prove that it's the only truth. And that's where it turns demonic. Because that's when you get religious wars and persecutions and burning heretics at the stake.101
Peter GuberThink about all the great leaders. Think about Obama. Think about Clinton. Think about Nelson Mandela. Think about all the people that we know who are very successful in business, in politics and religion. What are they? They tell purposeful stories. They move people to action by aiming at the heart.101
Phil OchsEven 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.101
Robert JacksonThe day that this country ceases to be free for irreligion, it will cease to be free for religion.101
Shirin EbadiHuman rights is a universal standard. It is a component of every religion and every civilization.101
Trevor PhillipsThe most likely victim of actual religious discrimination in British society is a Muslim, but the person who is most likely to feel slighted because of their religion is an evangelical Christian.101
Walter KaufmannWhen Hegel later became a man of influence' he insisted that the Jews should be granted equal rights because civic rights belong to man because he is a man and not on account of his ethnic origins or his religion.101
Andrew GreeleyWell, 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.101
Baron d'HolbachNothing can be more contrary to religion and the clergy than reason and common sense.101
Ellen WillisThe 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.101
Franz WerfelReligion is the everlasting dialogue between humanity and God. Art is its soliloquy.101
George A. SmithWe must seek the loving-kindness of God in all the breadth and open-air of common life.101
George W. RomneyWe need leadership that can elevate religion and morality to their position of paramount importance and thus eliminate growing selfishness, immorality and materialism.101
Georges BizetReligion is a means of exploitation employed by the strong against the weak; religion is a cloak of ambition, injustice and vice.101
Gregory BatesonScience, like art, religion, commerce, warfare, and even sleep, is based on presuppositions.101
Guy de MaupassantPatriotism is a kind of religion; it is the egg from which wars are hatched.101
Henry IVReligion is not changed as easily as a shirt.101
Howard FastA critic is a eunuch working in a harem. He watches it, but he knows he can't do it. Critics very often are failed writers and, like failed priests, they hate religion.101
Northrop FryeCulture's essential service to a religion is to destroy intellectual idolatry, the recurrent tendency in religion to replace the object of its worship with its present understanding and forms of approach to that object.101
Rashid al-GhannushiFrench laicite is probably aggressive and antagonistic to the religion, but there are other models of secularism in the world where there could be reconciliation between religion and secularism.101
Richard John NeuhausSocialism is the religion people get when they lose their religion.101
Simon GreenleafIn examining the evidence of the Christian religion, it is essential to the discovery of truth that we bring to the investigation a mind freed, as far as possible, from existing prejudice, and open to conviction.101
Taslima NasrinI write against the religion because if women want to live like human beings, they will have to live outside the religion and Islamic law.101
Walter KoenigReligious 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.101
Binyavanga WainainaI believe in, and will to the best of my ability fight for, equal rights and freedom of opinion for everyone, regardless of colour, religion, nationality, orientation - you know the rest.101
Bob InglisThe freedom to convert is fundamental to freedom of religion.101
Carrie-Anne MossPeople tell you the world looks a certain way. Parents tell you how to think. Schools tell you how to think. TV. Religion. And then at a certain point, if you're lucky, you realize you can make up your own mind. Nobody sets the rules but you. You can design your own life.101
Elian GonzalezI don't profess to have any religion, but if I did, my God would be Fidel Castro. He is like a ship that knew to take his crew on the right path.101
Louis KronenbergerThere 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.101
Maggie GyllenhaalI studied English literature; I took 2 independent religion classes, but I wasn't a religion major really.101
Marcus du SautoyWhen people ask me what my religion is, I say it's the Arsenal.101
Philip SchaffTo the first class belong the Gospels and Acts; to the second, the Epistles; to the third, the Revelation.101
Pierre NineyIt's my only religion to work hard, and then I'm not under any pressure because I know I've done the work on the character.101
William PenningtonOur Father and Our God, unto thee, O Lord we lift our souls.101
Charles GrodinWith me, personal relationships are like my religion. I care that deeply about them. I am the complete opposite of a manipulative smoothie.101
Maria MonkAll around me insisted that my doubts proved only my own ignorance and sinfulness; that they knew by experience they would soon give place to true knowledge, and an advance in religion; and I felt something like indecision.101
Mojo NixonI can't understand people calling themselves religious and being hateful. If a preacher is preaching hate, to fear God that's not religion, that's not helping humanity, that's organizing an army to defeat somebody.101
Stedman GrahamMost people are defined by their titles, their cars, their house, where they came from, their color, their race, their religion. And so it's up to you to take control of your own life and define you. As long as you understand who you are and you have a solid foundation of understanding what your talents are, what your skills are.101
Chris Weitz'The Golden Compass' became a bad experience because the studio didn't have faith in the strength of the ideas of the novel, which is ironic because it's one of the greatest fantasy novels ever written, if not the greatest, and they took the religion out of it and tried to turn it into a popcorn movie.101
John B. S. HaldaneThere can be no truce between science and religion.101
Mary Augusta WardI wanted to show how a man of sensitive and noble character, born for religion, comes to throw off the orthodoxies of his day and moment, and to go out into the wilderness where all is experiment, and spiritual life begins again.101
Bernard KatzOrganized religion: the world's largest pyramid scheme.101
Amy BrennemanI remember when we had to pick our major freshman year, I chose comparative religion. It came to me out of the blue. I am amazed at how interested I still am in those ideas, especially the way spirituality is expressed in the world and in art.101
Markwayne MullinThe fundamentals that founded our great nation included the freedom of speech and religion.101
Ricardo AlarconThe obligation of the state is to guarantee freedom of religion, and that implies dealing with all of them on an equal footing.101
Richard Mentor JohnsonLet the professors of Christianity recommend their religion by deeds of benevolence - by Christian meekness - by lives of temperance and holiness.101
Sergio LeoneIn my childhood, America was like a religion. Then, real-life Americans abruptly entered my life - in jeeps - and upset all my dreams.101
John Desmond BernalReligious suffering is at once the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the sentiment of the heartless world, as it is the soul of soulless condition. It is the opium of the people.101
Midge UreYou 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.101
John GalsworthyReligion was nearly dead because there was no longer real belief in future life; but something was struggling to take its place - service - social service - the ants creed, the bees creed.101
August BebelWe aim in the domain of politics at republicanism; in the domain of economics at socialism; in the domain of what is today called religion, at atheism.101
Joko WidodoIndonesia is the world's third-largest democracy. And we also have the world's largest Muslim population. This demonstrates that democracy and Islam are not incompatible. Terrorism is not associated with any religion.101
Mircea EliadeEvery religion implies that it treats the problem of being and nonbeing, life and death. Their languages are different, but they speak about the same things.101
Richard DawkinsMany of us saw religion as harmless nonsense. Beliefs might lack all supporting evidence but, we thought, if people needed a crutch for consolation, where's the harm? September 11th changed all that.102
Soren KierkegaardPrayer does not change God, but it changes him who prays. 102
Swami VivekanandaYou cannot believe in God until you believe in yourself. 102
Saint IgnatiusTeach us to give and not to count the cost.102
Alan TuringScience is a differential equation. Religion is a boundary condition.102
Arlen SpecterThe First Amendment freedom of religion is as important today as when the Bill of Rights was first written.102
Bill MaherIf you belonged to a political party or a social club that was tied to as much bigotry, misogyny, homophobia, violence, and sheer ignorance as religion is, you'd resign in protest.102
Bonnie RaittReligion is for people who are scared to go to hell. Spirituality is for people who have already been there.102
Eddie IzzardReligion and philosophy, philosophy and religion - they're two words which are both... different. In spelling.102
Greg GraffinFolk music usually has an emphasis on the lyrics and melody. And those lyrics are usually relevant in some way. And it's populist in scope, which is also true of Bad Religion. So it's more meant to draw some parallels between the two. And I think even my voice and my delivery can be thought of as a little bit folky.102
Imelda StauntonI 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.102
Ishmael BeahI believe in having a more open mind and including others who don't share your faith and having dialogue with them. And just having a pure heart and being a good person can bring you closer to God. Because once you believe in one particular religion fully and not others, that requires you to start disliking people who don't share your views.102
Karen ArmstrongCompassion is not a popular virtue. Very often when I talk to religious people, and mention how important it is that compassion is the key, that it's the sine-qua-non of religion, people look kind of balked, and stubborn sometimes, as much to say, what's the point of having religion if you can't disapprove of other people?102
Kirk CameronI believe that freedom of speech and freedom of religion go hand-in-hand in America.102
Larry FlyntReligion has caused more harm than any other idea since the beginning of time. There's nothing good I can say about it. People use it as a crutch.102
Lee StrobelChristianity is a very historical religion - it makes specific claims that are open to testing.102
Lisa RandallPeople who dismiss science in favor of religion sometimes confuse the challenge of rigorously understanding the world with a deliberate intellectual exclusion that leads them to mistrust scientists and, to their detriment, what they discover.102
Marilynne RobinsonI'm a great admirer of secularism. At its best, I think it's one of the best things that we have. I don't believe in insinuating religion into conversation. I don't believe in excluding it from conversation. I enjoy the fact that people's innermost thoughts are their own.102
Neale Donald WalschNothing has done more to separate and divide human beings one from another than exclusivist organized religion.102
Noah WebsterNo 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.102
Peter T. KingThe Muslims have, as everyone else says, the right to practice their religion and they have the right to construct a mosque at ground zero if they wish. What I am saying, though, is that they should listen to public opinion, they should listen to the deep wounds and anguish that this is causing to so many good people.102
Ulrich BeckAll 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.102
Vaclav KlausNevertheless, 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.102
Win ButlerI had a somewhat religious upbringing. Not strict, but it was there, and I'm kind of thankful for that. If you grow up just watching MTV, that's its own form of religion, and it's not even based on happiness or communal responsibility. I mean, try to construct a worldview out of that.102
Abdolkarim SoroushReligion forbids us from assuming a God-like character. This is especially true in politics and government, where limiting the power of the state, division of powers, and the doctrine of checks and balances are established in order to prevent accumulation of power that might lead to such Godly claims.102
Abdullah of Saudi ArabiaMuslims are not bloodthirsty people. Islam is a religion of peace that forbids the killing of the innocent. Islam also accepts the Prophets, whether those prophets are Mohammed, God's peace and blessing be upon Him, or Moses or the other prophets of the Books.102
Charles de SecondatReligious wars are not caused by the fact that there is more than one religion, but by the spirit of intolerance... the spread of which can only be regarded as the total eclipse of human reason.102
Flora LewisDemocracy may have arisen in the West as the way of striving for the universal aspiration to dignity and freedom, but it isn't alien to the underlying concepts that infuse religion and moral philosophy everywhere.102
Gene RobinsonI think people often come to the synagogue, mosque, the church looking for God, and what we give them is religion.102
Kirstie AlleyWhen 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.102
Lance BassIt doesn't matter what color, sex, religion, age, sexual orientation, etc., everyone should have the same freedoms and liberties.102
Louie SchwartzbergI 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.102
Robert JacksonIf 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.102
Tom ArayaI am not an atheist; I believe in God. But my religion ends there. I have my own personal belief system that is so strong it allows me to do what I do. I don't have to worry about going to Hell because of Slayer, you know? Everyone has a personal belief system and believes in life somehow.102
William Robertson SmithReligion did not exist for the saving of souls but for the preservation and welfare of society, and in all that was necessary to this end every man had to take his part, or break with the domestic and political community to which he belonged.102
Andrew GreeleyI think the real problem for American religion are those minority of fundamentalists who try to identify political policies with religion.102
Anita DiamentThe Sabbath is a weekly cathedral raised up in my dining room, in my family, in my heart.102
Francois PinaultThe passion for art is, as for believers, very religious. It unites people, its message is of common humanity. Art has become my religion - others pray in church. It's a banality, but you don't possess art, it possesses you. It's like falling in love.102
Graham ElliotI tried to start my own religion in high school. I was very eccentric. I've always loved attention.102
Henry Norris RussellConflict between science and religion a dangerous foe.102
James LankfordReligion that is contained only within a church building is a weekend hobby, not a personal faith.102
Kingsley AmisOne of the great benefits of organised religion is that you can be forgiven your sins, which must be a wonderful thing. I mean, I carry my sins around with me, there's nobody there to forgive them.102
Lyman BeecherNo great advance has been made in science, politics, or religion without controversy.102
Madalyn Murray O'HairReligion is induced insanity.102
Roger WilliamsGod requireth not a uniformity of religion.102
Sela WardI have a strong belief in God... I find religion to be a very personal thing... I am also very spiritual.102
Stephen HarperAfter all, enforced national bilingualism in this country isn't mere policy. It has attained the status of a religion. It's a dogma which one is supposed to accept without question.102
Tawakkol KarmanI discovered that wearing the veil is not suitable for a woman who wants to work in activism and the public domain. People need to see you, to associate and relate to you. It is not stated in my religion to wear the veil; it is a traditional practice, so I took it off.102
Tom TancredoI believe that what we are fighting here is not just a small group of people who have hijacked a religion, but it is a civilization bent on destroying ours.102
William BlumAmerica's state religion, is patriotism, a phenomenon which has convinced many of the citizenry that 'treason' is morally worse than murder or rape.102
William P. YoungI think people are tired of religion and how it divides and damages people. You can name it whatever you want, Islam or Christianity, but if you have a system in which God is distant and angry all the time, and you're trying to please him through the right disciplines, it isn't going to work for everyone.102
Daniel MorganWhere 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.102
Josh GadReligion 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.102
Len G. MurrayThere 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.102
Lord MelbourneThings are coming to a pretty pass when religion is allowed to invade private life.102
Clive BellArt and Religion are, then, two roads by which men escape from circumstance to ecstasy. Between aesthetic and religious rapture there is a family alliance. Art and Religion are means to similar states of mind.102
Lemuel K. WashburnReligion is no more the parent of morality than an incubator is the mother of a chicken.102
Lord HailshamThe introduction of religious passion into politics is the end of honest politics, and the introduction of politics into religion is the prostitution of true religion.102
Ryan AdamsMusic is my thing. It's my thing; it's what I love. It's what I do. It's football to me; it's Christmas to me; religion to me; poetry to me.102
Benjamin WhichcoteAmong politicians the esteem of religion is profitable; the principles of it are troublesome.102
Bruno LatourThe only shibboleth the West has is science. It is the premise of modernity and it defines itself as a rationality capable of, indeed requiring separation from politics, religion and really, society. Modernisation is to work towards this.102
Mary GardenKrishna children were taught that in the spiritual world there were no parents, only souls and hence this justified their being kept out of view from others, cloistered in separate buildings and sheltered from the evil material world.102
Richard ChamberlainI consider myself a religious person. God is something very personal with me and I don't flaunt religion in conversation with others.102
Alfred RosenbergRacial history is therefore natural history and the mysticism of the soul at one and the same time; but the history of the religion of the blood, conversely, is the great world story of the rise and downfall of peoples, their heroes and thinkers, their inventors and artists.102
Anna JamesonIn morals what begins in fear usually ends in wickedness; in religion what begins in fear usually ends in fanaticism. Fear, either as a principle or a motive, is the beginning of all evil.102
B. R. HaydenReligion and education are no match for evil without the grace of God.102
Bernard KatzFor as long as I care to remember, religion, like the striptease, has always been a display of the power of suggestion. Like the Virgin Birth, it has all too often supported an immaculate deception.102
Jerry CostelloWith 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.102
Maria EdgeworthSome people talk of morality, and some of religion, but give me a little snug property.102
Abdurrahman WahidAll 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.102
Anna SewellThere 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.102
Mark HopkinsReligion without morality is a superstition and a curse, and morality without religion is impossible.102
Josh MandelI will represent all of the people of Ohio, regardless of their background. I don't care if you are a Democrat, a Republican, a Libertarian or a vegetarian, I will be blind to race, religion or any kind of orientation.102
Austin FarrerReligion is more like response to a friend than it is like obedience to an expert.102
AvicennaThe world is divided into men who have wit and no religion and men who have religion and no wit.103
Galileo GalileiThe Bible shows the way to go to heaven, not the way the heavens go. 103
Malala YousafzaiThere should be no discrimination against languages people speak, skin color, or religion. 103
Thomas PaineThe World is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion. 103
Toni MorrisonIt's been mentioned or suggested that Paradise will not be well studied, because it's about this unimportant intellectual topic, which is religion.103
Dave ChappelleI don't normally talk about my religion publicly because I don't want people to associate me and my flaws with this beautiful thing. And I believe it is beautiful if you learn it the right way.103
Elaine PagelsI got to thinking about the Book of Revelation that was written by a Jewish prophet who was also a follower of Jesus who hated the Roman Empire. I realized that the Book of Revelation could be a way to reflect on the issue of religion's relationship to politics.103
Emile DurkheimA society whose members are united by the fact that they think in the same way in regard to the sacred world and its relations with the profane world, and by the fact that they translate these common ideas into common practices, is what is called a Church. In all history, we do not find a single religion without a Church.103
Hanya YanagiharaNo 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.103
Harbhajan SinghI am proud to be a Sikh and am a true disciple of Guru Gobind Singh, who sacrificed his entire family for the Sikh religion.103
Henri BergsonReligion is to mysticism what popularization is to science.103
Howard CosellThe 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.103
Hu ShihAnother 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.103
Jesse VenturaOrganized 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.103
John Henrik ClarkeReligion 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.103
Karl BarthJesus does not give recipes that show the way to God as other teachers of religion do. He is himself the way.103
Lawrence M. KraussWhatever the evolutionary basis of religion, the xenophobia it now generates is clearly maladaptive.103
Noah WebsterIt is the sincere desire of the writer that our citizens should early understand that the genuine source of correct republican principles is the bible, particularly the New Testament or the Christian religion.103
Norma McCorveyIt doesn't make any difference what religion you are, or how young you are or how old you are-if they go to these abortion mills and stand there and pray-that would make a lot of difference.103
Pete SeegerI 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.103
Robert OwenFinding 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.103
Rowan AtkinsonTo criticize a person for their race is manifestly irrational and ridiculous, but to criticize their religion, that is a right. That is a freedom.103
Sojourner TruthReligion without humanity is very poor human stuff.103
Thomas SzaszFormerly, when religion was strong and science weak, men mistook magic for medicine; now, when science is strong and religion weak, men mistake medicine for magic.103
William WallaceIf 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.103
Edmond de GoncourtIf there is a God, atheism must seem to Him as less of an insult than religion.103
John Shelby SpongIt appears to be in the nature of religion itself to be prejudiced against those who are different.103
Jonathan SacksReligion creates community, community creates altruism and altruism turns us away from self and towards the common good... There is something about the tenor of relationships within a religious community that makes it the best tutorial in citizenship and good neighborliness.103
Michel HouellebecqIslam is a dangerous religion.103
Simon SchamaThe notion that religion can actually be something... attached to progressivism seems so bizarre. But all you have to say is that Abolition wouldn't have happened without it. The way in which African Americans managed to achieve a degree of self-determination was through the church.103
Tim PawlentyThere is a group of individuals who are radical jihadists. We need to call them by name. They believe it is OK to kill people in the name of their religion. It is not all of Islam. It is not all Muslims. But there is a subgroup who believe it is OK. In fact, it is their plan and design to kill people.103
William T. VollmannMy father hates organized religion, probably because he hates the God who killed his little girl back in 1968. I find religions variously bemusing.103
Amar'e StoudemireThe fact that I am not Jewish by religion does not prevent me from connecting to the Jewish nation's spirituality.103
Katherine WebbAs you know, the South is known for its hospitality, traditions, football, pageants, and food. Football is almost like a religion here. People say their priorities are faith, family, and then football. People eat, breathe, and sleep it in the South. It's a huge deal.103
Ken BuckWhile we have a Constitution that is very strong in the sense that we are not gonna have a religion that's sanctioned by the government, it doesn't mean that we need to have a separation between government and religion.103
Kjell Magne BondevikUnfortunately, religion, like patriotism, is easy to misuse for political purposes.103
Laurence HousmanI was just then going through a healthy reaction from the orthodoxy of my youth; religion had become for me not so much a possession as an obsession, which I was trying to throw off, and this iconoclastic tale of an imaginary tribe was the result.103
Phillip E. JohnsonThe restriction of religion to private life therefore does not necessarily threaten the vital interests of the majority religion, if there is one, and it protects minority religions from tyranny of the majority.103
RajneeshMy people. I have given them a sense of individuality, integrity. I have not made them slaves of any god or any religion. Nor of any holy book or any priest. I have certainly not replaced their god. They are all a part of what I call my traveling circus.103
Simon GreenleafThe foundation of our religion is a basis of fact - the fact of the birth, ministry, miracles, death, resurrection by the Evangelists as having actually occurred, within their own personal knowledge.103
Taslima NasrinThe fundamentalists are increasing. People, afraid to oppose those fundamentalists, shut their mouths. It is really very difficult to make people move against a sensitive issue like religion, which is the source of fundamentalism.103
Chen-Ning YangScience has become something that everybody knows he has to pay attention to, but not everybody is a believer. So I don't think we should equate science with religion. But, that science is progressively playing a more and more important part in the life of every individual is obvious.103
David Henry HwangChinese culture in general is not very religious. Confucianism is more a code of ethics than a religion, and ancestor worship is a way for parents to control you even after they're dead.103
Johannes TaulerGive yourself entirely to God, enter and hide in the hidden ground of your soul.103
Lamar S. SmithThe Constitution provides for freedom of religion, not freedom from religion.103
Radhanath SwamiIn religion, there's a certain type of fear that if somebody believes differently from me, that it's a threat. Because I'm right, and there cannot be two ways that are right, so if I'm right, anything different than this must be wrong; and we attack those things and it's really due to insecurity, ego and fear.103
Ron LewisFreedom of religion is a principle that is central to our Nation's Declaration of Independence. Congress has taken this positive step to protect our freedom to express allegiance to America's flag and the ideals it represents.103
Sean DurkinSports teams, people who follow sports teams, religion, churches, work - any company, I find that people just generally have a need to belong to something larger than themselves.103
Sri AurobindoIndian 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.103
Aaron NevilleI was raised Catholic, but my father's people were Methodist, so we went to both churches.103
Dixie Lee RayIt is not classified as a pagan religion. The so-called New Age activities and this are not called religions and therefore don't come under the prohibition of mingling church and state that we have in this country.103
James Anthony FroudeThe secret of a person's nature lies in their religion and what they really believes about the world and their place in it.103
Mustafa Kemal AtaturkI 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.103
Rich CohenI have long believed that celebrity, the way we worship and package and sell our pop stars, is what filled the need for gods that was once filled by the pictures in stained glass. Hollywood is post-Christian Venice - in other words, a pantheon of saints without the hassle and heartache of religion.103
Richard BurtonThe more I study religions the more I am convinced that man never worshipped anything but himself.103
Ruth St. DenisOur bodies are at once the receiving and transmitting stations for life itself. It is the highest wisdom to recognize this fact and train our bodies to render them sensitive and responsive to nature. art and religion.103
Jon KatzAnimals have come to mean so much in our lives. We live in a fragmented and disconnected culture. Politics are ugly, religion is struggling, technology is stressful, and the economy is unfortunate. What's one thing that we have in our lives that we can depend on? A dog or a cat loving us unconditionally, every day, very faithfully.103
Mustafa AkyolThere are strengths in Islamic tradition. Islam actually, as a monotheistic religion, which defined man as a responsible agent by itself, created the idea of the individual in the Middle East and saved it from the communitarianism, the collectivism of the tribe.103
Raymond MoodyI 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.103
Roland AllenIf we allow the consideration of heathen morality and heathen religion to absolve us from the duty of preaching the gospel we are really deposing Christ from His throne in our own souls.103
David Starr JordanWhen a dog barks at the moon, then it is religion; but when he barks at strangers, it is patriotism!103
Joseph P. BradleyIt is the duty and high privilege of every human being to endeavor to improve himself. Effort at self-improvement is the definition sometimes given for religion. It may relate to our actions or to our convictions. In our actions we should aim at goodness; in our convictions, at truth.103
Samuel ChaseReligion 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.103
Stephen SpenderReligion stands, the Church blocking the sun.103
Anthony de MelloThese 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.103
Jean-Francois CopeThere are a certain number of extreme behaviours led by fundamentalists who are using their religion for political ends and use extremist techniques.103
Juan Antonio SamaranchWe peruse one ideal, that of bringing people together in peace, irrespective of race, religion and political convictions, for the benefit of mankind.103
John Paul StevensThe government must pursue a course of complete neutrality toward religion.103
Thomas JeffersonI never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend.104
Elie WieselWherever 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.104
Martin LutherTo be a Christian without prayer is no more possible than to be alive without breathing. 104
ASAP RockyThere was a time when someone would get on a plane and request to move their seat just because the person sitting next to them was of a different ethnicity or religion or nationality. But I don't think my generation wants that. That's how it used to be.104
Bill MaherWe are a nation that is unenlightened because of religion. I do believe that. I think religion stops people from thinking. I think it justified crazies.104
Christopher MarloweI count religion but a childish toy, and hold there is no sin but ignorance.104
Daniel DennettI 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.104
Elliott AbramsIn 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.104
Elton JohnI love the idea of the teachings of Jesus Christ and the beautiful stories about it, which I loved in Sunday school and I collected all the little stickers and put them in my book. But the reality is that organised religion doesn't seem to work. It turns people into hateful lemmings and it's not really compassionate.104
Emile DurkheimIf religion has given birth to all that is essential in society, it is because the idea of society is the soul of religion.104
F. Sionil JoseCultural values are, in themselves, neutral as well as universal, and so much depends on how individuals or ethnic groups use them. Values are influenced by so many factors such as geography, climate, religion, the economy and technology.104
Feisal Abdul RaufOne of the misperceptions that exists in the Muslim world, which needs to be fixed, is the perception that Muslims in America are - are - are living in - in very, very, very bad circumstances. They cannot practice religion freely. It is not the truth at all. The fact is, we are practicing. We fast, we pray, we do our prayers.104
Howard CosellAfter all, is football a game or a religion?104
Howard SternI'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.104
Hugh HefnerThe major civilizing force in the world is not religion, it is sex.104
Ingmar BergmanI hope I never get so old I get religious.104
Isabella BirdOther lands may have their charms, and the sunny skies of other climes may be regretted, but it is with pride and gladness that the wanderer sets foot again on British soil, thanking God for the religion and the liberty which have made this weather-beaten island in a northern sea to be the light and glory of the world.104
Lawrence M. KraussOrganized religion, wielding power over the community, is antithetical to the process of what modern democracy should define as liberty. The sooner we are without it, the better.104
Lucille BallI have an everyday religion that works for me. Love yourself first, and everything else falls into line.104
LucretiusSuch are the heights of wickedness to which men are driven by religion.104
Michael BloombergWhatever you may think of the proposed mosque and community center, lost in the heat of the debate has been a basic question: Should government attempt to deny private citizens the right to build a house of worship on private property based on their particular religion?104
MosesSee, 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.104
Nelson A. MilesA Christian people who have for two hundred years kept a race in bondage, deprived of the advantages of civilization and religion, owe them a debt of gratitude which it would seem ungenerous to withhold.104
Octavia ButlerReligion 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.104
Os GuinnessBeyond any question, the way the American founders consistently linked faith and freedom, republicanism and religion, was not only deliberate and thoughtful, it was also surprising and anything but routine.104
Ridley ScottThe word 'religion' is only a label. What lies behind that, the most important thing of all, is the word 'faith'. You either have faith, or you don't have faith, or you have degrees of faith - and if you have degrees of faith, then you become agnostic. You're kind of in-between, or you're on the fence.104
Sam HarrisIt'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.104
Stanley HauerwasWe Protestants automatically assume that the Pharisees are the Catholics. They are the self-righteous people who have made Christianity a form of legalistic religion, thereby destroying the free grace of the Gospel. We Protestants are the tax collectors, knowing that we are sinners and that our lives depend upon God's free grace.104
Art LinkletterMy 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.104
Charlie PierceIf religion comes into the public square, it is as vulnerable as any other human institution to be pelted with produce. Ignorance does not become wisdom just because you gussy it up with the Gospels.104
Gary NorthThis is God's world, not Satan's. Christians are the lawful heirs, not non-Christians.104
Jessie JI want young people to know that they can belong - whatever your culture, your religion, your sexuality - that you can live life how you want to live it and feel comfortable how you are.104
John O'DonohueMost people are enduring a marginalized isolation. One of the great obstacles to modern friendships is the 'religion of rush.' People are rushing all the time through time. Friendship takes time.104
Kenneth Scott LatouretteChristianity is usually called a religion. As a religion it has had a wider geographic spread and is more deeply rooted among more peoples than any other religion in the history of mankind.104
Michel OnfrayReligion is like magic. It is all about tricks.104
Morris Raphael CohenCruel persecutions and intolerance are not accidents, but grow out of the very essence of religion, namely, its absolute claims.104
Parker PalmerAmerica's freedom of religion, and freedom from religion, offers every wisdom tradition an opportunity to address our soul-deep needs: Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, secular humanism, agnosticism and atheism among others.104
Pope Shenouda IIIThe Coptic Church respects the law but it does not accept rulings that go against the Bible and our freedom of religion.104
Tom ArayaI 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.104
Arthur WellesleyThe Lord's prayer contains the sum total of religion and morals.104
Chino MorenoReligion, in any form, is always interesting to me because of how powerful it is. Not even the religion itself, but to the people that follow it... The effect that it has had on people's minds.104
Diane PaulusIn Elizabethan England or classical Athens... theater was at the center of, not culture, but society and politics and religion and civic engagement. Those things have a different audience.104
Ernest IstookThere are a lot of Grinches out there that would like nothing better than to take any references to religion out of the holiday season.104
Gouverneur MorrisReligion is the solid basis of good morals; therefore education should teach the precepts of religion, and the duties of man toward God.104
James CaanI think we have to believe in things we don't see. That's really important for all of us, whether it's your religion or Santa Claus, or whatever. That's pretty much what it's about.104
James LarkinThe question of religion was a matter for each individual's conscience, and in a great many cases was the outcome of birth or residence in a certain geographical area.104
Randy BachmanI have chosen to keep my personal life separate from my music, as the two are exclusive from each other, and I want to remain that way. I'll talk music, production, writing songs, touring with anyone but keep religion, politics and world affairs off the table, as my expertise is in songs and music.104
Rick WakemanMy faith is very private to me. It plays an important part in my life, but I do not try and throw my beliefs at others. I have tremendous respect for all faiths and beliefs, but have a deep concern that religion and faith are currently a long way apart from each other.104
Beatrix PotterAll 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.104
Cliff StearnsMr. Speaker, the fact of the matter is that the Ten Commandments are a historical document that contains moral, ethical, and legal truisms that any person of any religion or even an atheist can recognize and appreciate.104
Michael BerrymanIf your religion is better than mine and your opinion, you have a real problem.104
Rupert SheldrakeIn both religion and science, some people are dishonest, exploitative, incompetent and exhibit other human failings.104
Sri AurobindoIndia 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.104
Amin MaaloufI 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.104
Emil NoldeArt is exalted above religion and race. Not a single solitary soul these days believes in the religions of the Assyrians, the Egyptians and the Greeks... Only their art, whenever it was beautiful, stands proud and exalted, rising above all time.104
Louis DudekThe residue of religion in my work appears as a modified transcendentalism, and the positivist scientific side of my thought appears as concreteness and realism. The effort to reconcile the two is at the core of all my poetry.104
Toni Cade BambaraAnd what is religion, you might ask. It's a technology of living.104
Daniel BellWhen theology erodes and organization crumbles, when the institutional framework of religion begins to break up, the search for a direct experience which people can feel to be religious facilitates the rise of cults.104
Samuel ChaseBy our form of government, the Christian religion is the established religion; and all sects and denominations of Christians are placed upon the same equal footing, and are equally entitled to protection in their religious liberty.104
Jermaine JacksonI think Muslims have become the new Negroes in America. They are being mistreated at airports, by the Immigration - everywhere. Islam is a religion of peace. They are wrong.104
Mahatma GandhiWhen I admire the wonders of a sunset or the beauty of the moon, my soul expands in the worship of the creator.105
Billy GrahamMany 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.105
Karl MarxReligion is the impotence of the human mind to deal with occurrences it cannot understand.105
Bill MaherReligion, to me, is a bureaucracy between man and God that I don't need.105
Chief SeattleOur 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.105
Condoleezza RiceThe 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.105
Douglas BrinkleyReagan never cottoned to dictators. He was pure in this notion in a true belief that democracy was the best solution in the world because it spoke to people's hopes and dreams and aspirations, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of speech.105
Eli RothPossession and exorcism is something that's in every religion and every culture. It's a real primal fear: Is the body a vessel for our spirits? What happens if something else takes over it? Where does the spirit go?105
Ernest HolmesBut even in the Christian religion, much of its real meaning is hidden by words that are misleading and symbols that but few understand.105
Felix AdlerEthical religion can be real only to those who are engaged in ceaseless efforts at moral improvement. By moving upward we acquire faith in an upward movement, without limit.105
Frans de WaalReligion looms as large as an elephant in the United States, to the point that being nonreligious is about the biggest handicap a politician running for office can have, bigger than being gay, unmarried, thrice married, or black.105
Lawrence M. KraussKeeping religion immune from criticism is both unwarranted and dangerous.105
Lisa RandallBoth religions and musicals work best with energetic and committed believers. Cynicism or detachment would have destroyed the magic - something true of religion, too.105
Louis AragonOf all possible sexual perversions, religion is the only one to have ever been scientifically systematized.105
MaimonidesHe, however, who begins with Metaphysics, will not only become confused in matters of religion, but will fall into complete infidelity.105
Nat TurnerTo a mind like mine, restless, inquisitive, and observant of everything that was passing, it is easy to suppose that religion was the subject to which it would be directed; and, although this subject principally occupied my thoughts, there was nothing that I saw or heard of to which my attention was not directed.105
Noah WebsterThe ecclesiastical establishments of Europe which serve to support tyrannical governments are not the Christian religion but abuses and corruptions of it.105
Oswald ChambersWe have to pray with our eyes on God, not on the difficulties.105
Paul BloomIt is clear that rituals and sacrifices can bring people together, and it may well be that a group that does such things has an advantage over one that does not. But it is not clear why a religion has to be involved. Why are gods, souls, an afterlife, miracles, divine creation of the universe, and so on brought in?105
Recep Tayyip ErdoganAs a politician who cherishes religious conviction in his personal sphere, but regards politics as a domain belonging outside religion, I believe that this view is seriously flawed.105
Sam HarrisMy concern with religion is that it allows us by the millions to believe what only lunatics or idiots could believe on their own. That's not to say that all religious people are lunatics or idiots. It's anything but that.105
Serj TankianWe 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.105
Simon HoggartI know of no wars started by anyone to impose lack of religion on someone else. We have lethal Sunni v Shia, Catholic against Protestant, but no agnostic suicide bombers attack crowded atheist pubs.105
Thomas MoreThose among them that have not received our religion do not fright any from it, and use none ill that goes over to it, so that all the while I was there one man was only punished on this occasion.105
Trey ParkerOut of all the ridiculous religion stories - which are greatly, wonderfully ridiculous - the silliest one I've ever heard is, 'Yeah, there's this big, giant universe, and it's expanding, and it's all going to collapse on itself, and we're all just here, just 'cuz. Just 'cuz.' That to me, is the most ridiculous explanation ever.105
Abhishek BachchanI 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.105
Duane ChapmanWe believe that God is big enough to give every nationality their own religion, as he's given them their own taste in food, in plants, in furniture, and housing. I think that each religion has their basic Christ-ish way to get to the Everlasting God.105
Frederick BuechnerReligion points to that area of human experience where in one way or another man comes upon mystery as a summons to pilgrimage.105
George J. MitchellIn every society in human history, including the United States, those in power seek to imbue themselves with the attributes of religion and patriotism as a way of getting greater support for their policy and insulating themselves from any criticism.105
Hans KungThat 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.105
Harriet MartineauReligion is a temper, not a pursuit.105
Ja RuleI believe in God and not religion, because I believe religion is the double cross. Because I've been double crossed by three religions, so I think I can safely say that religion - there is maybe something wrong with religion. Every temple that's put up may not be a holy one, so watch out.105
Josh McDowellAnyone with sincere religious beliefs cannot say that all religions are true. That is so illogical it is pathetic. All religion cannot be true because some of them are so diametrically opposed to each other.105
Kerry KingI think the church and the religion right now have a lot more to be worried about than SLAYER.105
Michael ShermerI 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.105
Tim HeideckerThere's a generation of people I think without a strong connection to family, to religion, to civic duty. They have a real disassociation from the problems of the world.105
Adoniram JudsonGod is waiting to be gracious, and is willing to make us happy in religion, if we would not run away from him. We refuse to open the window shutters, and complain that it is dark.105
Amish TripathiI turned atheist in the '90s when India went through troubled times - communal riots, bomb blasts... Mumbai, where I live, was badly affected. I blamed religion; also, extremists on both sides - right and left.105
James LarkinThere must be freedom for all to live, to think, to worship, no book, no avenue must be closed.105
RajneeshWhat I am teaching is religiousness, a quality. Religion is a dead dogma, fixed principles, frozen fossils. What I am teaching to you is a living, flowing religiousness - an experience like love.105
Richard Le GallienneAll religions have periods in their history which are looked back to with retrospective fear and trembling as eras of persecution, and each religion has its own book of martyrs.105
Tony WilsonEnergy, energy? Energy is, is, it's nothing more than a lot of new age hokum masquerading as religion.105
Andrew SullivanHow can you tell when a political ideology has become the equivalent of a religion?105
Angel HazeI think of religion as something that stains the person. It's a mindset you can never get free from, it's always in the back of your head.105
James Branch CabellPatriotism is the religion of hell.105
Jason IsbellFor 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.105
Jim RyunThe United States is not a nation based upon race, creed, or religion - we are a nation based upon our loyalty and allegiance to our country and her principles.105
John MorleyWhere it is a duty to worship the sun it is pretty sure to be a crime to examine the laws of heat.105
Michael BerrymanAnd religion causes most of the problems, war, and economics of course, and study your history or you're going to repeat it; and if you're burning a Harry Potter book you need some serious counseling, you don't get it, you're missing the whole point.105
Rupert SheldrakeBad 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.105
Sean O'CaseyThere'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.105
JuanesI respect religion in general. I respect a lot, but I don't follow any religion. You know, I just follow my personal connection with God. For me, God is inside my heart and is inside everyone's heart.105
Anais NinWhen we blindly adopt a religion, a political system, a literary dogma, we become automatons. We cease to grow.106
Galileo GalileiI 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.106
Jesus ChristSo 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.106
Karl MarxReligion is the opium of the masses.106
David GilmourI've never had any religion. I'd prefer it if I did, really. Even as a boy I just couldn't make myself believe.106
Geraldine BrooksYou can't write about the past and ignore religion. It was such a fundamental, mind-shaping, driving force for pre-modern societies. I'm very interested in what religion does to us - its capacity to create love and empathy or hatred and violence.106
Hans Urs von BalthasarEven if a unity of faith is not possible, a unity of love is. 106
Henry Cabot LodgeTrue Americanism is opposed utterly to any political divisions resting on race and religion.106
Isabelle HuppertMy mom's a Catholic, and my dad's a Jew, and they didn't want anything to do with anything.106
Joseph JoubertSuperstition is the only religion of which base souls are capable of.106
Karl BarthReligion is the possibility of the removal of every ground of confidence except confidence in God alone.106
Ken HamOur public schools arbitrarily define science as explaining the world by natural processes alone. In essence, a religion of naturalism is being imposed on millions of students. They need to be taught the real nature of science, including its limitations.106
Michael MooreThere's a gullible side to the American people. They can be easily misled. Religion is the best device used to mislead them.106
Naguib MahfouzGod did not intend religion to be an exercise club.106
Narendra ModiAll 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.106
Noah WebsterIn 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.106
OrigenIf all things were made through Him, clearly so must the splendid revelations have been which were made to the fathers and prophets, and became to them the symbols of the sacred mysteries of religion.106
Pankaj MishraAs the spiritual leader of six million people, the Dalai Lama can be credited with a significant renunciation of the authority of tradition - of the conventional politics of national self-interest as well as of religion.106
Paul RyanHey, I'm a Catholic deer hunter, I am happy to be clinging to my guns and my religion.106
Richard EngelThe Muslim Prophet Mohammed was a big believer in charity and firmly established helping those in need as a basis of the religion.106
Sam HarrisReligion provides the only story that is fundamentally consoling in the face of the worst possible experiences - the death of a parent, for instance. In fact, many religions take away the problem entirely, because their adherents ostensibly believe that they're going to be reunited with everyone they love, and death is an illusion.106
Talib KweliSkip the religion and politics, head straight to the compassion. Everything else is a distraction.106
William Ralph IngeWe 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.106
Alexis CarrelReligion brings to man an inner strength, spiritual light, and ineffable peace.106
Amy ChuaGenghis Khan decreed religious tolerance for all of his conquered peoples. So I think he definitely would approve of our constitutional protections of freedom of religion. I think he would also approve of the way the U.S. has been able to attract talented people from all over the world.106
Daron MalakianI 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.106
Hans JonasIt was once religion which threatened us with a last judgment at the end of days. It is now our tortured planet which predicts the arrival of such a day without any heavenly intervention.106
Ja RuleI stopped going to Kingdom Hall, the church, when I was 11 years old, so I was very young. They don't celebrate birthdays, you get no Christmas, so it's a very difficult religion for children to get into. And they do a lot of finger-pointing among the Jehovah's Witnesses.106
John O'DonohueThe human soul is hungry for beauty; we seek it everywhere - in landscape, music, art, clothes, furniture, gardening, companionship, love, religion, and in ourselves. No one would desire not to be beautiful. When we experience the beautiful, there is a sense of homecoming.106
Karin SlaughterBeing a Southerner, I'm interested in sex, violence, religion and all the things that make life interesting.106
Michael SandelI grew up in a Jewish family, and we have raised our children in a Jewish tradition. Religion gives a framework for moral enquiry in young minds and points us to questions beyond the material.106
Paul TournierLet us not seek to bring religion to others, but let us endeavor to live it ourselves.106
Trick DaddyI'm married to the street; I ain't gonna switch over. I ain't gonna go religion on nobody. I believe in God - God is for the thugs too - but the streets are in the most trouble. So I'mma keep it focused on the streets and the struggle. That's what I'm mainly about.106
Chesty PullerMy 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.106
Godfrey ReggioIt's not just the effect of technology on the environment, on religion, on the economic structure, on society, on politics, etc. It's that everything now exists in technology to the point where technology is the new and comprehensive host of nature of life.106
Madalyn Murray O'HairReligion has caused more misery to all of mankind in every stage of human history than any other single idea.106
Michelle Malkin9/11 was a deliberate, carefully planned evil act of the long-waged war on the West by Koran-inspired soldiers of Allah around the world. They hated us before George W. Bush was in office. They hated us before Israel existed. And the avengers of the religion of perpetual outrage will keep hating us.106
Scott EastwoodI 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.106
Carol P. ChristIn Goddess religion death is not feared, but is understood to be a part of life, followed by birth and renewal.106
Donna SummerMy life was changed in one breath from God.106
Saxby ChamblissThe truth is our country, our people, our liberties, and our way of life are under attack by radical Islamic terrorists who kill and destroy in the name of religion.106
James FreyAmerica was first colonized by Puritans. Most of our earliest immigrants, and many since, have come here in order to practice their religious beliefs as they please. Our culture has always been, and will most likely always be, profoundly influenced by religion.106
Dalai LamaMy religion is very simple. My religion is kindness. 107
Vladimir PutinTerrorism has no nationality or religion.107
Anthony HopkinsWe 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.107
Eugene IonescoThere is no religion in which everyday life is not considered a prison; there is no philosophy or ideology that does not think that we live in alienation.107
Haile SelassieThe 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.107
Helena BlavatskyIt is, then, by those shadows of the hoary Past and their fantastic silhouettes on the external screen of every religion and philosophy, that we can, by checking them as we go along, and comparing them, trace out finally the body that produced them.107
Ian MacKayeI'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.107
John BurroughsJoy in the universe, and keen curiosity about it all - that has been my religion. 107
Liberty Hyde BaileyScience may eventually explain the world of How. The ultimate world of Why may remain for contemplation, philosophy, religion.107
Neil PostmanTV 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.107
Paul JohnsonMarxism, Freudianism, global warming. These are proof - of which history offers so many examples - that people can be suckers on a grand scale. To their fanatical followers they are a substitute for religion. Global warming, in particular, is a creed, a faith, a dogma that has little to do with science.107
Saint PatrickIf I have any worth, it is to live my life for God so as to teach these peoples; even though some of them still look down on me.107
Steven Van ZandtRock n' roll is our religion, and we will continue to lose disciples as we go, but we pick up the fallen flag and keep moving forward, bringing forth the good news that our heroes have helped create, their bodies lost, but their spirits and their good work everlasting.107
Zbigniew BrzezinskiLook at Islam in a rational manner and without demagoguery or emotion. It is the leading religion of the world with 1.5 billion followers.107
Dinesh D'SouzaChristianity is the fastest-growing religion in the world; Islam is the second. It's spreading in Asia, Africa, and South America. So the world is in a kind of religious revival, and the atheists are totally flummoxed. They thought they were winning, and now they see that they aren't.107
Hakeem OlajuwonThe 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.107
Jeff MillerWe establish no religion in this country, nor will we ever. But we poison our society when we remove its theological underpinnings. We court corruption when we leave society devoid of belief.107
Julian CasablancasReligion is never the problem; it's the people who use it to gain power.107
Jurgen HabermasDisappointment 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.107
Kathe KollwitzTo this day I do not know whether the power which has inspired my works is something related to religion, or is indeed religion itself.107
Michael ShermerScientific prayer makes God a celestial lab rat, leading to bad science and worse religion.107
Minna AntrimThe difference between a saint and a hypocrite is that one lies for his religion, the other by it.107
Mohamed ElBaradeiThere is no religion that was founded on intolerance - and no religion that does not value the sanctity of human life.107
Mohsin HamidMost Muslims do not 'choose' Islam in the way that they choose to become doctors or lawyers, nor even in the way that they choose to become fans of Coldplay or Radiohead. Most Muslims, like people of any faith, are born into their religion.107
Morris Raphael CohenIf religion cannot restrain evil, it cannot claim effective power for good.107
Paul TournierRecounting of a life story, a mind thinking aloud leads one inevitably to the consideration of problems which are no longer psychological but spiritual.107
Pete SamprasIt's not my place to tell you whom to vote for, to take any political stand, to tell you what religion to believe in. I'm an athlete. I can influence certain things, but when I see other athletes and celebrities telling you whom to vote for, I actually get a bit offended.107
Preity ZintaTwo things in India are religion - one is cricket, and one is movies - these are two things.107
Robert LanzaPerhaps, if science is clever enough to see, it will realize that religion may not be too far off with its concrete imagery; and that relative to the supreme creator, we humans are much like the microorganisms we scrutinize under the microscope.107
Shashi TharoorI don't go by my caste, creed or religion. My works speak for me.107
Hannah MoreGenius without religion is only a lamp on the outer gate of a palace; it may serve to cast a gleam of light on those that are without, while the inhabitant sits in darkness.107
Kit WilliamsThe engine of ancient society was religion but the engine of contemporary society, as I see it, is advertising.107
Moses MendelssohnThe state has physical power and uses it when necessary; the power of religion is love and beneficence.107
Gerard Manley HopkinsReligion, you know, enters very deep; in reality it is the deepest impression I have in speaking to people, that they are or that they are not of my religion.107
Muriel SparkArt and religion first; then philosophy; lastly science. That is the order of the great subjects of life, that's their order of importance.107
Charity Sunshine Tillemann-DickIt doesn't matter what tradition you come from, what religion you have or don't, what culture you were brought up in or what God you ascribe to: Faith is worthwhile as it helps us to be kinder, more generous, more loving and forgiving people.107
Julia Ward HoweBeneath all differences of doctrine or discipline there exists a fundamental agreement as to the simple, absolute essentials in religion.107
Henry Ward BeecherI never knew how to worship until I knew how to love.108
John Maynard KeynesThe 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.108
Margaret MeadInstead of being presented with stereotypes by age, sex, color, class, or religion, children must have the opportunity to learn that within each range, some people are loathsome and some are delightful.108
Abraham Joshua HeschelWorship is a way of seeing the world in the light of God.108
Anita RoddickSince the governments are in the pockets of businesses, who's going to control this most powerful institution? Business is more powerful than politics, and it's more powerful than religion. So it's going to have to be the vigilante consumer.108
Arthur C. ClarkeThe greatest tragedy in mankind's entire history may be the hijacking of morality by religion.108
Christopher DawsonAs I have pointed out, it is the Christian tradition that is the most fundamental element in Western culture. It lies at the base not only of Western religion, but also of Western morals and Western social idealism.108
Emile DurkheimThe roles of art, morality, religion, political faith, science itself are not to repair organic exhaustion nor to provide sound functioning of the organs. All this supraphysical life is built and expanded not because of the demands of the cosmic environment but because of the demands of the social environment.108
Herman HesseThe marvel of the Bhagavad-Gita is its truly beautiful revelation of life's wisdom which enables philosophy to blossom into religion.108
Jorge Luis BorgesTo fall in love is to create a religion that has a fallible god.108
Josephine BakerSurely 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.108
LucretiusSo potent was religion in persuading to evil deeds.108
Nathaniel HawthorneReligion and art spring from the same root and are close kin. Economics and art are strangers.108
Neale Donald WalschI was told to challenge every spiritual teacher, every world leader to utter the one sentence that no religion, no political party, and no nation on the face of the earth will dare utter: 'Ours is not a better way, ours is merely another way.108
Norman FinkelsteinConversion and zealotry, just like revelation and apostasy, are flip sides of the same coin, the currency of a political culture having more in common with religion than rational discourse.108
Peter UstinovThe habit of religion is oppressive, an easy way out of thought.108
Vinod KhoslaReligion 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.108
Christine QuinnBike lanes - I put that now in the category of things you shouldn't discuss at dinner parties, right? It used to be money and politics and religion. Now, in New York, you should add bike lanes.108
Harvey MilkThe fact is that more people have been slaughtered in the name of religion than for any other single reason. That, that my friends, is true perversion.108
Jane ElliotNo white group has founded a major religion on this planet. The major religious were started in the Orient and the Middle East, not in Greece and Rome. I always knew you racists didn't have a prayer.108
Mandy MooreI want to learn about a different religion. I grew up Catholic, but my grandfather was Jewish. Knowledge about other religions can help you understand your own better. I think it's kind of hypocritical to believe one thing and don't know about any others.108
David EaglemanEvery week I get letters from people worldwide who feel that the possibilian point of view represents their understanding better than either religion or neo-atheism.108
Emily CarrThe artist himself may not think he is religious, but if he is sincere his sincerity in itself is religion.108
Jay PariniWe are a nation of immigrants, a quilt of many colors, and we've managed over more than two centuries to create a way of life that allows for a reasonable degree of upward mobility, that prizes individual liberty, promotes freedom of religion and genuinely values equal rights for all citizens.108
Kelly SlaterSurfing is my religion, if I have one.108
Pauline PhillipsReligion, like water, may be free, but when they pipe it to you, you've got to help pay for piping. And the Piper!108
Abu Bakar BashirMuslims must believe that all power, success and victory comes from God alone.108
Azar NafisiBasically, fundamentalism is a modern phenomenon. In the same way that Hitler evoked a mythological religion of German purity and the glory of the past, the Islamists use religion to evoke emotions and passions in people who have been oppressed for a long time in order to reach their purpose.108
Buddy HackettWhat makes a comedian has nothing to do with religion. Think of Red Skelton, Jimmy Durante, Jackie Gleason, who were all Catholics.108
Sri AurobindoThat which we call the Hindu religion is really the Eternal religion because it embraces all others.108
Charles SpurgeonIf any of you should ask me for an epitome of the Christian religion, I should say that it is in one word - prayer. Live and die without prayer, and you will pray long enough when you get to hell.109
Abraham Joshua HeschelA religious man is a person who holds God and man in one thought at one time, at all times, who suffers harm done to others, whose greatest passion is compassion, whose greatest strength is love and defiance of despair.109
Ben ShapiroPresident Obama's respect for the Constitution does not extend to freedom of religion - his administration has forced religious businessowners to pay for insurance plans that cover activities in violation of religious precepts.109
Bill MaherI think flying planes into a building was a faith-based initiative. I think religion is a neurological disorder.109
Frederick the GreatReligion is the idol of the mob; it adores everything it does not understand.109
Jonathan HaidtPolitics is really religion. Politics is about sacredness. Politics is about offering a vision that will bind the nation together to pursue greatness.109
Lionel BlueMy mother was a modern woman with a limited interest in religion. When the sun set and the fast of the Day of Atonement ended, she shot from the synagogue like a rocket to dance the Charleston.109
Maharishi Mahesh YogiWhat we have done, the result of that comes to us whenever it comes, either today, tomorrow, hundred years later, hundred lives later, whatever, whatever. And so, it's our own karma. That is why that philosophy in every religion: Killing is sin. Killing is sin in every religion.109
Najib RazakIn 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.109
Reza AslanReligion doesn't make people bigots. People are bigots and they use religion to justify their ideology.109
Steven BikoBlack 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.109
Vanna BontaAtheism is a religion itself complete with fanatics and bigots.109
Wallace StevensIntolerance respecting other people's religion is toleration itself in comparison with intolerance respecting other people's art.109
Dayananda SaraswatiNo 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.109
Martin AmisIf God existed, and if He cared for humankind, He would never have given us religion.109
Robin MorganFeminism is for all women and girls, not a privileged few or one ethnicity, religion, age, sexual preference, ability, region or hemisphere.109
Tom BakerWe are pre-disposed for fantasy, there is a natural impulse for human beings to want to get off their heads or out of their heads in something in a substance or a drink or an idea or a religion which will comfort them and make life exciting.109
Adora SvitakI would love it if we made more comparisons between current issues and issues of the past. Maybe we'd realize that sometimes 'current issues' and 'past issues' are one and the same. Our world's people still fight over natural resources, kill in the name of religion, occupy regions and give them up - just as we did 'so long ago.'109
Jack BowmanI've been in elementary education for years and my belief is that Christmas pageants in schools are little more than conditioning kids for the Christian religion.109
Desmond TutuWhen 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.110
Jesus ChristFor God so loved the World that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.110
Kofi AnnanIn 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.110
Barney FrankI hope we will not so characterize religious people as being so narrow and so biased towards people not of their own religion that they cannot even work with them in this common cause to which you say they are committed.110
Dietrich BonhoefferOne act of obedience is better than one hundred sermons.110
Ernie HarwellBaseball just a came as simple as a ball and bat. Yet, as complex as the American spirit it symbolizes. A sport, a business and sometimes almost even a religion.110
Frank HerbertReligion often partakes of the myth of progress that shields us from the terrors of an uncertain future.110
Gabriel IglesiasI 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.110
Gene WilderI'm going to tell you what my religion is. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Period. Terminato. Finito.110
John BurroughsThe Kingdom of Heaven is not a place, but a state of mind.110
Muhammad Ali JinnahYou 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.110
Phillips BrooksChristianity helps us face the music even when we don't like the tune.110
Steven SeagalMy philosophy is that the most important aspect of any religion should be human kindness. And to try to ease the suffering of others. To try to bring light and love into the lives of mankind.110
Tom BrokawIf fishing is a religion, fly fishing is high church.110
William AmesThe first act of religion, therefore, concerns those things which are communicated to us from God. The other concerns those things which we yield to God.110
A. R. RahmanMy mother's belief in spiritual healers grew stronger after our family went through a rough patch following my father's death. Sufi saint Karimullah Shah Kadri changed our lives, and all of us converted to Sufism. But it wasn't an instantaneous decision - it took us 10 years to convert. The change in religion was like washing away the past.110
Harriet MartineauBut is it not the fact that religion emanates from the nature, from the moral state of the individual? Is it not therefore true that unless the nature be completely exercised, the moral state harmonized, the religion cannot be healthy?110
Jane ElliotI'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.110
John Shelby SpongThe audience that I try to reach are members of what I call the church alumni association. Now they are people who have not found in institutional religion a God big enough to be God for their world.110
Pope Shenouda IIICivil disobedience is not accepted by religion and the state does not accept it and there are many verses in the Holy Book that talk of following the ruler.110
Sarah ParcakItjtawy was ancient Egypt's capital for over four hundred years, at a period of time called the Middle Kingdom about four thousand years ago. The site is located in the Faiyum of Egypt, and the site is really important because in the Middle Kingdom there was this great renaissance for ancient Egyptian art, architecture and religion.110
T-PainI'm still a person, a human being, no matter what religion I am.110
Amish TripathiI see a sense of unity in the universe. Spirituality is not limited to only one religion. One can experience it across different religions. I am fascinated by philosophy of Advaita and philosophy of unity. We have to get over the illusion that God is different from us.110
David CronenbergAnybody who comes to the cinema is bringing they're whole sexual history, their literary history, their movie literacy, their culture, their language, their religion, whatever they've got. I can't possibly manipulate all of that, nor do I want to.110
Jose MujicaI'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.110
Carol P. ChristThe women's movement will present a growing threat to patriarchal religion less by attacking it than by simply leaving it behind.110
Douglas William JerroldReligion's in the heart, not in the knees.110
Muhammad AliRivers, ponds, lakes and streams - they all have different names, but they all contain water. Just as religions do - they all contain truths.111
David HumeThe Christian religion not only was at first attended with miracles, but even at this day cannot be believed by any reasonable person without one.111
EpictetusAll religions must be tolerated... for every man must get to heaven in his own way.111
Nikola TeslaThere is no conflict between the ideal of religion and the ideal of science, but science is opposed to theological dogmas because science is founded on fact. To me, the universe is simply a great machine which never came into being and never will end. The human being is no exception to the natural order. Man, like the universe, is a machine.111
Paulo CoelhoWe want to answer this classical question, who am I? So I think that most of our works are for art, or whatever we do, including science or religion, tried to answer that question.111
Pope FrancisSince 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.111
PrinceMost people don't want to talk about politics and religion. They say, 'Let's talk about something else.'111
Albert EllisFor that again, is what all manner of religion essentially is: childish dependency.111
Brigham YoungDon'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.111
Christopher LaschAdherents of the new religious right reject the separation of politics and religion, but they bring no spiritual insights to politics.111
Feisal Abdul RaufGod says in the Quran that there is only one true religion, God's religion. It's the same theme that God revealed to all of the prophets, even before Muhammad.111
Frank HerbertWhen law and duty are one, united by religion, you never become fully conscious, fully aware of yourself. You are always a little less than an individual.111
Gordon W. AllportIt is not that we have class prejudice, but only that we find comfort and ease in our own class. And normally there are plenty of people of our own class, or race, or religion to play, live, and eat with, and to marry.111
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich SchlegelReligion can emerge in all forms of feeling: here wild anger, there the sweetest pain; here consuming hatred, there the childlike smile of serene humility.111
Kevin SmithHaven't two hundred years of failed missionary work overseas taught anybody anything? You can't convert people to anything - whether religion, or something as inane as our flicks.111
Lionel BlueEarly on I saw the repression and idolatry of Stalinism, and when it cracked, I was open to religion again.111
Neil YoungI'm not into organized religion. I'm into believing in a higher source of creation, realizing we're all just part of nature.111
Paul BloomIf you look within the United States, religion seems to make you a better person. Yet atheist societies do very well - better, in many ways, than devout ones.111
Steven PinkerBroadly speaking, the Southern and Western desert and mountain states will vote for the candidate who endorses an aggressive military, a role for religion in public life, laissez-faire economic policies, private ownership of guns and relaxed conditions for using them, less regulation and taxation, and a valorization of the traditional family.111
Tom WolfeA cult is a religion with no political power.111
William J. H. BoetckerTrue religion... is giving and finding one's happiness by bringing happiness into the lives of others.111
Joyce Carol OatesBoxing is a celebration of the lost religion of masculinity all the more trenchant for its being lost.111
Laura Arrillaga-AndreessenReligion is a complex and often contradictory force in our world. It fosters hope and comfort but also doubt and guilt. It creates both community and exclusion. It brings societies together around shared belief and tears them apart through war. However, what unites the faithful, whatever their religion, is the unshakeable force of generosity.111
Leonard SusskindWhether or not evolution is compatible with faith, science and religion represent two extremely different worldviews, which, if they coexist at all, do so most uncomfortably.111
Liya KebedeI'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.111
Mohsin HamidMy grandparents used to pray five times a day, but they were quiet about their own thing. Completely liberal day by day; my grandmother was a social worker and my grandfather was an engineer, but they never talked about religion. My entire life I couldn't remember one conversation I had with them about religion.111
Philip James BaileyPrayer is the spirit speaking truth to Truth.111
Ralph W. SockmanChristmas renews our youth by stirring our wonder. The capacity for wonder has been called our most pregnant human faculty, for in it are born our art, our science, our religion.111
Rick SantorumI love it when the left and when the president say, 'Don't try to impose your values on us, you folks who hold your Bibles in your hand and cling to your guns.' They have values too. Our values are based on religion, based on life. Their values are based on a religion of self.111
Simon SchamaIn Mesopotamia or Egypt, for example, the monarch had a god-like religious status. But this is not the case in Judaism. So that notion that religion can go on, when all the markers of power and trappings of monarchy disappear, ultimately serves the endurance of Judaism very well.111
Arthur WellesleyEducate men without religion and you make of them but clever devils.111
Taslima NasrinWomen are oppressed in the east, in the west, in the south, in the north. Women are oppressed inside, outside home, a woman is oppressed in religion, she is oppressed outside religion.111
Radhanath SwamiWhereas 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.111
Muhammad AliI believe in the religion of Islam. I believe in Allah and peace. 112
Arthur SchopenhauerReligion is the masterpiece of the art of animal training, for it trains people as to how they shall think.112
George SantayanaEach religion, by the help of more or less myth, which it takes more or less seriously, proposes some method of fortifying the human soul and enabling it to make its peace with its destiny.112
H. P. LovecraftIf 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.112
Joseph CampbellGod is a metaphor for that which transcends all levels of intellectual thought. It's as simple as that.112
Alexis de TocquevilleThe 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.112
Benito MussoliniFascism is a religion. The twentieth century will be known in history as the century of Fascism.112
BonoGod is so big. It's a gigantic concept in God. The idea that God might love us and be interested in us is kind of huge and gigantic, but we turn it, because we're small-minded, into this tiny, petty, often greedy version of God, that is religion.112
Jonathan SwiftWe have enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.112
Melody BeattieTwelve-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.112
Annie BesantNo philosophy, no religion, has ever brought so glad a message to the world as this good news of Atheism.112
Barbara WaltersFirst of all, the Jewish religion has a great deal in common with the Christian religion because, as Rabbi Gillman points out in the show, Christianity is based on Judaism. Christ was Jewish.112
Ben ShapiroSame-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.112
Dwight L. MoodyI know the Bible is inspired because it inspires me.112
Erykah BaduPersonally, 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.112
George GurdjieffReligion is doing; a man does not merely think his religion or feel it, he lives his religion as much as he is able, otherwise it is not religion but fantasy or philosophy.112
GrimesMusic is a religion to me and my friends.112
Joni MitchellYou have this mounting aggressive ignorance with the rabbit's foot of their particular religion. You don't really have any kind of spiritual law, just a kind of a rabid mental illness. The songs are a little slice of life.112
Nassim Nicholas TalebI'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.112
Steve EarleTo me, religion is an agreement between a group of people about what God is. Spirituality is a one-on-one relationship.112
Tim O'ReillyThe thing we should all be looking for are people who want to make a difference. I'm a big believer in the Silicon Valley religion of the power of markets. But I also believe in our obligation to give back, and to give back in the way we do business, to create more value than we capture for ourselves.112
Tommy ChongReligion is run by thought police. 'Obey. Listen. This is what you do. Don't ask questions. Go die for your country.' The spirituality says, 'Okay, you can die for your country, but know what you're doing while you're doing it.'112
Vanilla IceI'm a Christian, but I don't believe in religion or anything like that.112
Vera FarmigaI 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.112
Mary Baker EddyI would no more quarrel with a man because of his religion than I would because of his art.112
Rachel CuskI was aware, in those early days of motherhood, that my behaviour was strange to the people who knew me well. It was as though I had been brainwashed, taken over by a cult religion. And yet this cult, motherhood, was not a place where I could actually live. Like any cult, it demanded a complete surrender of identity to belong to it.112
Joseph Franklin RutherfordThe Bible is the fountain of truth.112
Radhanath SwamiWhat I found particularly fascinating and satisfying about the Hindu tradition was its spirit of inclusiveness. In Sanatan Dharma, or what is commonly called Hinduism, I discovered the basic truths of all religions in a way that the oneness of God and religion is comprehensively understood.112
Alexander HamiltonIn 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.113
Eckhart TolleYou can have religion with spirituality. You can also have religion without spirituality.113
Francis BaconThe 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.113
Jimi HendrixMusic is my religion. 113
Richard DawkinsOne 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.113
D. H. LawrenceA 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.113
John KeatsLove is my religion - I could die for it. 113
Alejandro JodorowskyI 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.113
Karen ArmstrongI am not interested in the afterlife. Religion is supposed to be about losing your ego, not preserving it eternally in optimum conditions.113
Myles MunroeYoung 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.113
Orson PrattThe Godhead consists of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The Father is a material being.113
Shah Rukh KhanI 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.113
Steve EarleFundamentalism, as practiced by the Taliban, is the enemy of real thought, and religion too.113
Tom CruiseIf I don't talk about my religion, if I say I'm not discussing it or different humanitarian things I'm working on, they're like, 'He's avoiding it.' If I do talk about it, it becomes, 'Oh, he's proselytizing.'113
William O. DouglasWe are a religious people whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being.113
Jeremy TaylorA religion without mystery must be a religion without God.113
Alexander ChaseMore and more people care about religious tolerance as fewer and fewer care about religion.113
Glenn DanzigWars have always started over religion.113
Jiddu KrishnamurtiReligion is the frozen thought of man out of which they build temples.114
Dwight L. MoodyIt 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?114
F. Sionil JoseI envy those Hindus and Buddhists who have in their religion philosophy and ancestor worship which build in the believer a continuity with the past, and that most important ingredient in the building of a nation - memory.114
Harriet Ann JacobsThere is a great difference between Christianity and religion at the south. If a man goes to the communion table, and pays money into the treasury of the church, no matter if it be the price of blood, he is called religious.114
MaimonidesDo not imagine that what we have said of the insufficiency of our understanding and of its limited extent is an assertion founded only on the Bible: for philosophers likewise assert the same, and perfectly understand it,- without having regard to any religion or opinion.114
Naguib MahfouzIf you want to move people, you look for a point of sensitivity, and in Egypt nothing moves people as much as religion.114
Robert BrowningEarth changes, but thy soul and God stand sure.114
Saint AmbroseThere is nothing evil save that which perverts the mind and shackles the conscience.114
Tom FordI am a spiritual person in an eastern religion kind of way. I learned that happiness for all of us is a switch that you flick in your brain. It doesn't have anything to do with getting a new house, a new car, a new girlfriend, or a new pair of shoes. Our culture is very much about that; we are never happy with what we have today.114
William Jennings BryanIf we have to give up either religion or education, we should give up education.114
Jonathan SacksIn thinking about religion and society in the 21st century, we should broaden the conversation about faith from doctrinal debates to the larger question of how it might inspire us to strengthen the bonds of belonging that redeem us from our solitude, helping us to construct together a gracious and generous social order.114
MatisyahuWhen people feel a certain religion claims to have all the answers, that's what turns them off.114
Angie StoneI think people's perception of a rich girl is literal, but metaphorically I embrace it as being rich in love, spirit, joy and religion. So it's not about money.114
BuddhaJust as a candle cannot burn without fire, men cannot live without a spiritual life. 115
Ariel SharonMyself, first of all, I am a Jew. And that is the most important thing for me.115
ASAP RockyFashion is almost like a religion, for me at least.115
B. R. AmbedkarIndians 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.115
Ben OkriAt 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.115
Daisaku IkedaI firmly believe that the mission of religion in the 21st century must be to contribute concretely to the peaceful coexistence of humankind.115
Huston SmithGod has to speak to each person in their own language, in their own idioms. Take Spanish, Chinese. You can express the same thought, but to different people you have to use a different language. It's the same in religion.115
Lee Kuan YewAs an East Asian looking at America, I find attractive and unattractive features. I like, for example, the free, easy and open relations between people regardless of social status, ethnicity or religion.115
Patrick HenryI have now disposed of all my property to my family. There is one thing more I wish I could give them, and that is the Christian religion.115
Paul DaviesIn science, a healthy skepticism is a professional necessity, whereas in religion, having belief without evidence is regarded as a virtue.115
Queen Rania of JordanReligion and modernity are not necessarily mutually exclusive.115
Richard RohrIn my opinion, most organized religion does neither agentic service nor relational nurturance very well.115
Radhanath SwamiReligion is meant to teach us true spiritual human character. It is meant for self-transformation. It is meant to transform anxiety into peace, arrogance into humility, envy into compassion, to awaken the pure soul in man and his love for the Source, which is God.115
Abraham LincolnWhen I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. That's my religion. 116
BuddhaWork out your own salvation. Do not depend on others. 116
Ludwig WittgensteinNot 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.116
Thomas PaineMy country is the world, and my religion is to do good.116
John KeatsI 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.116
John RuskinThe greatest thing a human soul ever does in this world... to see clearly is poetry, prophecy and religion all in one.116
Marcus Tullius CiceroJust 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.116
Bill MaherReligion is dangerous because it allows human beings who don't have all the answers to think that they do.116
Carter G. WoodsonThis assumption of Negro leadership in the ghetto, then, must not be confined to matters of religion, education, and social uplift; it must deal with such fundamental forces in life as make these things possible.116
Cat StevensIn the early days I had a very black-and-white view of everything. I think that's kind of natural for anyone who's just embraced Islam - or any religion - as a convert. It was important for me to duck out of the fast and furious life I'd been living as a pop star. I was in a different mood.116
Charles LambI am determined that my children shall be brought up in their father's religion, if they can find out what it is.116
Eddie IzzardThere was no religion in my life growing up. Did God invent us or did we invent God?116
Franz LisztSupreme serenity still remains the Ideal of great Art. The shapes and transitory forms of life are but stages toward this Ideal, which Christ's religion illuminates with His divine light.116
Joseph Smith, Jr.Take away the Book of Mormon and the revelations, and where is our religion? We have none.116
Pat RobertsonIslam is a violent, I was going to say religion, but it's not a religion. It's a political system. It's a violent political system bent on the overthrow of the governments of the world and world domination. That is the ultimate aim.116
Patton OswaltI'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.116
Richard GereI think most of our religious institutions are pretty corrupt, so they're not reliable. I think the Christian religion that I was brought up with has very little to do with Christ, really, and more an institutions that have built up around the church.116
Ricky MartinI think religion is a bunch of hooey, and I think that the holidays are an opportunity for people to get stressed out, getting their rush to shop. It's so conformist.116
Rudy GiulianiAs Americans, we're not sure we share values. We're sometimes even afraid to use the word 'values.' We talk about teaching ethics in schools - people say, 'What ethics? Whose ethics? Maybe we can't.' And they confuse that with teaching of religion.116
Yehuda BergIt is not our sexual preferences, the color of our skin, the language we speak, nor the religion we practice that creates friction, hatred and wars amongst in society. It is our words and the words of our leaders that can create that disparity.116
Jessie JI remember while I was at school some of my Muslim friends talked about a handful of people spoiling things in every culture. Hatred or hurt or pain isn't specific to a religion. I think it's a matter of acceptance. The one thing the world has to accept is everybody is different. What is normal to us is different and unusual to somebody else.116
Maajid NawazI am a Muslim. I am born to Muslim parents. I have a Muslim son. I have been imprisoned and witnessed torture for my previous understanding of my religion.116
Tariq RamadanMuslims must speak out and explain who they are, what they believe in, what they stand for, what is the meaning of their life. They must have the courage to denounce what is said and done by certain Muslims in the name of their religion.116
Lucius Annaeus SenecaReligion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.117
Pope John Paul IIScience can purify religion from error and superstition. Religion can purify science from idolatry and false absolutes.117
Vincent Van GoghWhen I have a terrible need of - shall I say the word - religion. Then I go out and paint the stars.117
William BlakeThe glory of Christianity is to conquer by forgiveness.117
Dave BarryHobbies 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.117
Swami SivanandaMoral values, and a culture and a religion, maintaining these values are far better than laws and regulations.117
B. R. AmbedkarReligion and slavery are incompatible.117
Fred AllenThe first time I sang in the church choir; two hundred people changed their religion.117
Garth BrooksIn our house, everyone's opinion is welcome. I grew up in a house where everything wasn't when it came to politics or religion.117
John LewisWhen I was a student, I studied philosophy and religion. I talked about being patient. Some people say I was too hopeful, too optimistic, but you have to be optimistic just in keeping with the philosophy of non-violence.117
Katherine HeiglI still love the theology of the Mormon religion and think it is a wonderful way to grow up.117
Patrick HenryThe Bible is worth all the other books which have ever been printed.117
Sue Monk KiddIn the early 1800s, religion was often used as a way to keep slavery in place. Slaves were forced to attend the church of their owners, listen to selective dogma that kept them obedient and subservient.117
Tyler, The CreatorFor the record, I don't worship the devil. I just hate religion.117
Ulysses S. GrantLeave the matter of religion to the family altar, the church, and the private school, supported entirely by private contributions. Keep the church and state forever separate.117
Wendell PhillipsDifference of religion breeds more quarrels than difference of politics.117
Criss AngelI like to say magic is the world's second oldest profession, a mystical and often awe-inspiring spectacle that, throughout the ages, has blended superstition, trickery and religion.117
John O'DonohueOur trust in the future has lost its innocence. We know now that anything can happen from one minute to the next. Politics, religion, economics, and the institutions of family and community all have become abruptly unsure.117
Dalai LamaThere is no need for temples, no need for complicated philosophies. My brain and my heart are my temples; my philosophy is kindness.118
Theodore RooseveltA thorough knowledge of the Bible is worth more than a college education. 118
Blaise PascalMen despise religion. They hate it and are afraid it may be true.118
Frederick DouglassI prayed for twenty years but received no answer until I prayed with my legs. 118
Alice CooperI have never made fun of religion. Religion is something I don't even want to mess with, because I am really afraid of the clouds opening up and my being struck by lightning.118
Dwight L. MoodyThere are many of us that are willing to do great things for the Lord, but few of us are willing to do little things.118
Greg GraffinBad Religion has never been about criticizing people who are Christian. But we've always been about pointing out the irony and contradictions in Christian theology and the more extreme versions of Christians that seek to challenge modern secularism.118
Herbert ReadI call religion a natural authority, but it has usually been conceived as a supernatural authority.118
Jeremy BenthamNo power of government ought to be employed in the endeavor to establish any system or article of belief on the subject of religion.118
Jesse VenturaThere are lots of people out there who think they know the truth about God and religion, but does anybody really know for sure? That's why the founding fathers built freedom of religious belief into the structure of this nation, so that everybody could make up their minds for themselves.118
Karen ArmstrongAfter I left the convent, for 15 years I was worn out with religion, I wanted nothing whatever to do with it. I felt disgusted with it. If I saw someone reading a religious book on a train, I'd think, how awful.118
O. HenryLove and business and family and religion and art and patriotism are nothing but shadows of words when a man's starving!118
Patrick HenryThis is all the inheritance I give to my dear family. The religion of Christ will give them one which will make them rich indeed.118
Paul ValeryGod made everything out of nothing, but the nothingness shows through.118
Robert WinstonIn reality, both religion and science are expressions of man's uncertainty. Perhaps the paradox is that certainty, whether it be in science or religion, is dangerous.118
Sean CombsMusic is the most powerful form of communication in the world. It brings us all together. Even religion separates us, but a hit record unites us across religious beliefs, race, politics.118
Craig BrownYou might think that religion was the one area in which professional jealousy would take a back seat. But no: ecclesiastical memoirs are as viperish as any, though their envy tends to cloak itself in piety.118
James LovelockI'm a scientist, not a theologian. I don't know if there is a God or not. Religion requires certainty. Revere and respect Gaia. Have trust in Gaia. But not faith.118
Albert CamusI would rather live my life as if there is a God and die to find out there isn't, than live as if there isn't and to die to find out that there is.119
Joseph CampbellEvery 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.119
Thomas A. EdisonReligion is all bunk. 119
Aleksandr SolzhenitsynOf course God is endlessly multi-dimensional so every religion that exists on earth represents some face, some side of God.119
B. R. AmbedkarI like the religion that teaches liberty, equality and fraternity.119
Barbara EhrenreichIt was a real surprise to me to come across the evidence that Christianity might once have been a danced religion. Certainly, some of the early church leaders thought this was great and spoke of what seems to have been circle dancing, perhaps around an altar.119
David LynchI 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.119
Eddie IzzardI try to just talk about human stories and what I think about religion or teapots or whatever.119
Feisal Abdul RaufKoran 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.119
Jorge Luis BorgesTo die for a religion is easier than to live it absolutely.119
Malcolm MuggeridgeSex is the mysticism of materialism and the only possible religion in a materialistic society.119
Octavia ButlerReligion is everywhere. There are no human societies without it, whether they acknowledge it as a religion or not.119
Seth ShostakThe split between religion and science is relatively new. Isaac Newton, who first worked out the laws by which gravity held the planets and even the stars in their traces, was sufficiently impressed by the scale and regularity of the universe to ascribe it all to God.119
UnknownPreach the Gospel at all times and when necessary use words.119
Radhanath SwamiWhen people unfortunately use religion to facilitate their envy, arrogance and hate, communalism surfaces.119
George WashingtonLet 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.120
Carl SaganSkeptical scrutiny is the means, in both science and religion, by which deep thoughts can be winnowed from deep nonsense.120
Martin LutherTo gather with God's people in united adoration of the Father is as necessary to the Christian life as prayer.120
Edmund HillaryTourism is a very big economic benefit to the Sherpa people, and also, they have very strong ties to their own social attitudes and their own religion, so fortunately, they're not too influenced by many of our Western attitudes.120
Robert A. HeinleinIt 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.120
Swami SivanandaGo beyond science, into the region of metaphysics. Real religion is beyond argument. It can only be lived both inwardly and outwardly.120
Anthony HopkinsOur existence is beyond our explanation, whether we believe in God or we have religion or we're atheist. Our existence is beyond our understanding. No one has an answer.120
Chinua AchebeIn fact, I thought that Christianity was very a good and a very valuable thing for us. But after a while, I began to feel that the story that I was told about this religion wasn't perhaps completely whole, that something was left out.120
E. Stanley JonesPrayer is aligning ourselves with the purposes of God.120
Martin ScorseseMy whole life has been movies and religion. That's it. Nothing else.120
Paul TillichBeing religious means asking passionately the question of the meaning of our existence and being willing to receive answers, even if the answers hurt.120
Penn JilletteReligion cannot and should not be replaced by atheism. Religion needs to go away and not be replaced by anything. Atheism is not a religion. It's the absence of religion, and that's a wonderful thing.120
Pete TownshendIn order to have faith, or follow any other organized religion, I'd have to suspend a degree of disbelief.120
Adam DriverWe don't understand why we're here, no one's giving us an answer, religion is vague, your parents can't help because they're just people, and it's all terrible, and there's no meaning to anything.120
Juan WilliamsI pointed out that the Atlanta Olympic bomber - as well as Timothy McVeigh and the people who protest against gay rights at military funerals - are Christians but we journalists don't identify them by their religion.120
Mohamed ElBaradeiWhether one believes in evolution, intelligent design, or Divine Creation, one thing is certain. Since the beginning of history, human beings have been at war with each other, under the pretext of religion, ideology, ethnicity and other reasons. And no civilization has ever willingly given up its most powerful weapons.120
Aimee MullinsI didn't see how wearing prosthetics was quite so different from being born with flaming red hair in a crowd of black-haired babies, or being of a different religion from that of every other child in your area.120
Dalai LamaWhether 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.121
Franklin D. RooseveltWhoever seeks to set one religion against another seeks to destroy all religion.121
Richard DawkinsReligion is capable of driving people to such dangerous folly that faith seems to me to qualify as a kind of mental illness.121
Sigmund FreudReligion is an illusion and it derives its strength from the fact that it falls in with our instinctual desires.121
Booker T. WashingtonAt the bottom of education, at the bottom of politics, even at the bottom of religion, there must be for our race economic independence.121
Elizabeth Cady StantonThe memory of my own suffering has prevented me from ever shadowing one young soul with the superstition of the Christian religion.121
Arthur C. ClarkeI don't believe in God but I'm very interested in her.121
Barbara KingsolverI used to think religion was just more of the same thing. Dump responsibility on the big guy. Now I see an importance in that. It's a relief to accept that not everything is under your control.121
Camille PagliaAnti-religious sneers are a hallmark of perpetual adolescents.121
Clarence DarrowSome of you say religion makes people happy. So does laughing gas.121
Mel BrooksI'm rather secular. I'm basically Jewish. But I think I'm Jewish not because of the Jewish religion at all.121
Pope Benedict XVIA 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.121
Thomas HuxleyTeach a child what is wise, that is morality. Teach him what is wise and beautiful, that is religion!121
Trey ParkerI grew up with the religion of 'Star Wars,' frankly. That's when I realized there is something bigger out there... and it's called The Force.121
Ayaan Hirsi AliLet us recognize that we can no longer tolerate violent oppression of women in the name of religion and culture any more than we would tolerate violent oppression espoused by any other bully in the name of a twisted rationale.121
Mohsin HamidI think if you say that art and politics, or religion and politics, mustn't mix, don't mix, that is itself a political statement. Even if you are writing a 19th-century novel where the money comes from a plantation in the Caribbean and you don't talk about that, that itself is a political thing.121
Khalil GibranI 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.122
Desmond TutuGod's love is too great to be confined to any one side of a conflict or to any one religion.122
Jiddu KrishnamurtiA belief is purely an individual matter, and you cannot and must not organize it. If you do, it becomes dead, crystallized; it becomes a creed, a sect, a religion, to be imposed on others.122
Orson WellesI have a great love and respect for religion, great love and respect for atheism. What I hate is agnosticism, people who do not choose.122
E. W. HoweA man will do more for his stubbornness than for his religion or his country.122
Nathan MyhrvoldIn politics, religion and other areas of culture, people disagree on the worth of competing ideas. There is no equivalent to the scientific method that can determine in a robust way which ideas match the real world, and which ones can be ruled out. So conflicting ideologies persist indefinitely.122
Paul TillichReligion 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.122
John James AudubonTo repay evils with kindness is the religion I was taught to practise, and this will forever be my rule.122
Julian BagginiThe 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.122
Stephen HarperAs a religion, bilingualism is the god that failed. It has led to no fairness, produced no unity, and cost Canadian taxpayers untold millions.122
Richard DawkinsThe 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.123
William BlakePrisons are built with stones of Law. Brothels with the bricks of religion.123
B. R. AmbedkarReligion 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.123
BodhidharmaWorship means reverence and humility it means revering your real self and humbling delusions.123
Courtney LoveBeing a rock star is like being a cult leader - you really have to be in your own religion.123
Emile DurkheimMen have been obliged to make for themselves a notion of what religion is, long before the science of religions started its methodical comparisons.123
Erykah BaduI am not systematic at all when it comes to religion. I just love life. And I'm not judgmental. And I'm a vegetarian.123
Gerard WayPeople have evolved into something selfish, greedy and intolerant. People are unaccepting, because of religion, race, gender, sexual orientation... I've seen it in punk clubs, and I've seen it in the world.123
Karen ArmstrongReligious people often prefer to be right rather than compassionate. Often, they don't want to give up their egotism. They want their religion to endorse their ego, their identity.123
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich SchlegelThe difference between religion and morality lies simply in the classical division of things into the divine and the human, if one only interprets this correctly.123
Martin HeideggerOnly a god can save us.123
Richard RohrIf our love of God does not directly influence, and even change, how we engage in the issues of our time on this earth, I wonder what good religion is.123
Robert H. SchullerI 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.123
VoltaireWhen it is a question of money, everybody is of the same religion.124
Alan WattsIn 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.124
Richard M. NixonIn the long term we can hope that religion will change the nature of man and reduce conflict. But history is not encouraging in this respect. The bloodiest wars in history have been religious wars.124
Saint Teresa of AvilaWe can only learn to know ourselves and do what we can - namely, surrender our will and fulfill God's will in us.124
Swami VivekanandaGod is to be worshipped as the one beloved, dearer than everything in this and next life. 124
Thomas AquinasIf, then, you are looking for the way by which you should go, take Christ, because He Himself is the way.124
Thomas HobbesFear of things invisible in the natural seed of that which everyone in himself calleth religion.124
Mike TysonI'm a Muslim, but I think Jesus would have a drink with me. He would be cool. He would talk to me.124
B. R. AmbedkarA 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.124
Emile DurkheimIt is science, and not religion, which has taught men that things are complex and difficult to understand.124
Frans de WaalReligion may have become a codification of morality, and it may fortify it, but it's not the origin of it.124
Karen ArmstrongWhen violence becomes imbedded in a region, then this affects everything. It affects your dreams, your fantasies and relationships, and your religion becomes violent, too.124
Philip Seymour HoffmanOne person's religion is another person's cult.124
Robert ReichBefore the rise of the nation-state, between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries, the world was mostly tribal. Tribes were united by language, religion, blood, and belief. They feared other tribes and often warred against them.124
Scott AdamsNothing 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.124
Ronald ReaganFreedom prospers when religion is vibrant and the rule of law under God is acknowledged. 125
Alan WattsReligion is not a department of life; it is something that enters into the whole of it.125
Aleksandr SolzhenitsynReligion always remains higher than everyday life. In order to make the elevation towards religion easier for people, religion must be able to alter its forms in relation to the consciousness of modern man.125
Emile DurkheimMan 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.125
John Henrik ClarkeWe have been educated into believing someone else's concept of the deity, and someone else's standard of beauty. You have the right to practice any religion and politics in a way that best suits your freedom, your dignity, and your understanding. And once you do that, you don't apologize.125
Muhammad IqbalIndeed, in view of its function, religion stands in greater need of a rational foundation of its ultimate principles than even the dogmas of science.125
Oriana FallaciI am known for a life spent in the struggle for freedom, and freedom includes the freedom of religion.125
Sam HarrisThe 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.125
Thomas HardyThe main object of religion is not to get a man into heaven, but to get heaven into him.125
H. L. MenckenCommunism, like any other revealed religion, is largely made up of prophecies.126
Francis BaconA little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion.126
George W. BushI 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.126
Bear GryllsChristianity is not about religion. It's about faith, about being held, about being forgiven. It's about finding joy and finding home.126
Dave BarryThe problem with writing about religion is that you run the risk of offending sincerely religious people, and then they come after you with machetes.126
Cory BookerMy simple point is that I judge a person's faith by how they live their life, not by the tenets of their religion. I've watched the holiest of people walk past somebody in need or treat their staff mean. To me, the beauty of faith is only seen when people live it consistently or struggle to do so.126
Zayn MalikI believe that your religion should be between you and whoever your belief is in.126
Gary HamelOver the centuries, religion has become institutionalized, and in the process encrusted with elaborate hierarchies, top-heavy bureaucracies, highly specialized roles and reflexive routines.126
Jonathan SacksReligion is the best antidote to the individualism of the consumer age. The idea that society can do without it flies in the face of history and, now, evolutionary biology.126
Edgar Allan PoeAll religion, my friend, is simply evolved out of fraud, fear, greed, imagination, and poetry. 201
James MadisonReligion flourishes in greater purity, without than with the aid of Government.201
Ram DassI have always said that often the religion you were born with becomes more important to you as you see the universality of truth.201
Tracy ChapmanI think religion played a huge part in Bush's re-election.201
George CarlinReligion is just mind control.202
Thomas PaineAny system of religion that has anything in it that shocks the mind of a child, cannot be true.202
Isaac Bashevis SingerDoubt is part of all religion. All the religious thinkers were doubters.202
B. F. SkinnerI don't know whether I want to improve religion or not. I prefer to get rid of it.202
Jiddu KrishnamurtiWhat 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.202
Ravi ZachariasI 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?202
Will SmithI'm a student of world religion, so to me, it's hugely important to have knowledge and to understand what people are doing.202
B. R. AmbedkarMy social philosophy may be said to be enshrined in three words: liberty, equality and fraternity. Let no one, however, say that I have borrowed by philosophy from the French Revolution. I have not. My philosophy has roots in religion and not in political science. I have derived them from the teachings of my Master, the Buddha.202
Bill NyeYou can believe what you want religiously. Religion is one thing, but science, provable science, is something else.202
Elliott AbramsThe intersection of religion and world politics has often been a bloody crossroads.202
RamakrishnaMany good sayings are to be found in holy books, but merely reading them will not make one religious.202
Walter ScottThere is a vulgar incredulity, which in historical matters, as well as in those of religion, finds it easier to doubt than to examine.202
Dalai LamaWe can live without religion and meditation, but we cannot survive without human affection. 203
Baruch SpinozaI do not know how to teach philosophy without becoming a disturber of established religion.203
Jiddu KrishnamurtiI maintain that Truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect.203
Elizabeth IThere is one thing higher than Royalty: and that is religion, which causes us to leave the world, and seek God.203
William S. BurroughsYou must learn to exist with no religion, no country, no allies. You must learn to live alone in silence.203
J. Michael StraczynskiI also like to look at the dynamic that takes place between religion and science because, in a way, both are asking the same questions: Who are we? Where do we come from? Why are we here? Where are we going? The methodologies are diametrically opposed, but their motivation is the same; the wellspring is the same in both cases.203
Martin ReesCampaigning against religion can be socially counter-productive. If teachers take the uncompromising line that God and Darwinism are irreconcilable, many young people raised in a faith-based culture will stick with their religion and be lost to science.203
Immanuel KantReligion is the recognition of all our duties as divine commands.204
Napoleon BonaparteReligion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich. 204
Pope FrancisIf one has the answers to all the questions - that is the proof that God is not with him. It means that he is a false prophet using religion for himself. The great leaders of the people of God, like Moses, have always left room for doubt. You must leave room for the Lord, not for our certainties; we must be humble.204
Thomas PainePersecution is not an original feature in any religion; but it is always the strongly marked feature of all religions established by law.204
Calvin CoolidgeIt is only when men begin to worship that they begin to grow.204
Alice WalkerI 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.204
David MametLiberalism 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.204
E. O. WilsonEvery major religion today is a winner in the Darwinian struggle waged among cultures, and none ever flourished by tolerating its rivals.204
Jennifer AnistonI don't have a religion. I believe in a God. I don't know what it looks like but it's MY god. My own interpretation of the supernatural.204
Maharishi Mahesh YogiThe constitution of the universe is total natural law. 'Natural law,' we say from the field of science. 'Will of God,' we say from the field of religion. It's the same thing.204
Clint EastwoodI was always respectful of people who were deeply religious because I always felt that if they gave themselves to it, then it had to be important to them. But if you can go through life without it, that's OK, too. It's whatever suits you.205
Dave BarryThe 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.205
Douglas CouplandForget sex or politics or religion, loneliness is the subject that clears out a room.205
Tariq RamadanThe 21st century - and the atheists - needs the presence of religion, just as religion must deal with the real challenges and the thinkers of the day in order to sharpen the conscience and the intelligence of those who study the timeless sacred texts in a spirit of responding to the questions of their time.205
Albert EinsteinScience without religion is lame, religion without science is blind. 206
BjorkI think religion is a mistake - I'm exhausted by its self-righteousness. I think atheists should start screaming for attention like religious folks do.206
David HumeGenerally speaking, the errors in religion are dangerous; those in philosophy only ridiculous.206
Percy Bysshe ShelleyTwin-sister of Religion, Selfishness.206
John D. RockefellerAfter it is all over, the religion of man is his most important possession.206
Marilyn MansonIn a sense, terrorism blossomed in the advent of television. Television promotes terrorism in religion and in politics.206
Ravi ZachariasTo be born in India is to arrive into the world swimming in religion.206
Sam HarrisThe usefulness of religion - the fact that it gives life meaning, that it makes people feel good - is not an argument for the truth of any religious doctrine. It's not an argument that it's reasonable to believe that Jesus really was born of a virgin or that the Bible is the perfect word of the creator of the universe.206
Tony BlairBut in terms of how people live together, how we minimize the prospects of conflict and maximize the prospects of peace, the place of religion in our society today is essential.206
Aldous HuxleyThe more powerful and original a mind, the more it will incline towards the religion of solitude.207
Colin PowellI respect the fact that many denominations have different points of view with respect to gay marriage and they can hold that in the sanctity in the place of their religion and not bless them or solemnize them.207
Edmund BurkeReligion is essentially the art and the theory of the remaking of man. Man is not a finished creation.207
Gloria SteinemMonotheism makes me grouchy. I don't trust any religion that makes God look like one of the ruling class. I guess I'm a pagan or an animist.207
Niccolo MachiavelliThere is no surer sign of decay in a country than to see the rites of religion held in contempt.207
A. P. J. Abdul KalamNo religion has mandated killing others as a requirement for its sustenance or promotion. 207
John RuskinYou might sooner get lightning out of incense smoke than true action or passion out of your modern English religion.207
Joyce MeyerAs a global society, we do not have to agree, endorse or condone the lifestyle choices of others. However, history has taught us that we equally cannot and should not excuse those who would hide behind religion or misuse God's word to justify bigotry and persecution.207
Nick CaveThe concept of God in America is very different than it is in England. Because we see the horrendous outcome of religion as being an American thing, in which the name of God has been hijacked by a gang of psychopaths and bullies and homophobes, and the name of God has been used for their own twisted agendas.207
Rick WarrenI believe in the separation of church and state, but I do not believe in the separation of politics from religion.207
Sam HarrisTo speak specifically of our problem with the Muslim world, we are meandering into a genuine clash of civilizations, and we're deluding ourselves with euphemisms. We're talking about Islam being a religion of peace that's been hijacked by extremists. If ever there were a religion that's not a religion of peace, it is Islam.207
Denis DiderotDisturbances 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.208
Heinrich HeineEvery man, either to his terror or consolation, has some sense of religion.208
Paul CezanneI ask you to pray for me, for once age has overtaken us, we find consolation only in religion.208
Lord ByronThere's naught, no doubt, so much the spirit calms as rum and true religion.209
Woodrow WilsonThere is no higher religion than human service. To work for the common good is the greatest creed.209
John UpdikeThe inner spaces that a good story lets us enter are the old apartments of religion.209
Penn JilletteReligion is often just tribalism: pride in a group one was born into, a group that is often believed to have 'God' on its side.209
Robert Green IngersollEvery religion in the world has denounced every other religion as a fraud. That proves to me that they all tell the truth - about others.209
Thomas JeffersonDifference of opinion is advantageous in religion. The several sects perform the office of a Censor - over each other.210
Richard DawkinsSecularism 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.210
BonoI remember how my mother would bring us to chapel on Sundays... and my father used to wait outside. One of the things that I picked up from my father and my mother was the sense that religion often gets in the way of God. For me, at least, it got in the way.210
Anatole FranceReligion has done love a great service by making it a sin.210
Neil deGrasse TysonWhat 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.211
Henry Ward BeecherWe are always on the anvil; by trials God is shaping us for higher things.211
Annie BesantIndia is a country in which every great religion finds a home.211
Muhammad IqbalIf faith is lost, there is no security and there is no life for him who does not adhere to religion.211
Dalai LamaWhether you call it Buddhism or another religion, self-discipline, that's important. Self-discipline with awareness of consequences.212
Karl MarxThe first requisite for the happiness of the people is the abolition of religion.212
Camille PagliaModern bodybuilding is ritual, religion, sport, art, and science, awash in Western chemistry and mathematics. Defying nature, it surpasses it.212
E. O. WilsonScience and religion are the two most powerful forces in the world. Having them at odds... is not productive.212
Richard DawkinsReligion is about turning untested belief into unshakable truth through the power of institutions and the passage of time.213
Anthony HopkinsI hope I would not be so arrogant as to doubt anyone's religion or belief.213
Sam HarrisThe problem is that religion tends to give people bad reasons to be good.213
George SantayanaReligion in its humility restores man to his only dignity, the courage to live by grace.214
William BlakeWhat is a wife and what is a harlot? What is a church and what is a theatre? are they two and not one? Can they exist separate? Are not religion and politics the same thing? Brotherhood is religion. O demonstrations of reason dividing families in cruelty and pride!214
Monica JohnsonChristmas is a Christian holiday, and any self-respecting person of another religion should not celebrate a holiday that they don't believe in. Clearly, Christ is in the name of the holiday, so there should be a belief in Him.214
E. O. WilsonI see no way out of the problems that organized religion and tribalism create other than humans just becoming more honest and fully aware of themselves.215
Keanu ReevesI mean, I went to a Catholic boys' school for a year, but that was to play hockey. Religion class was quite contentious for me.215
Julian BagginiThe border between the natural and the supernatural, religion and philosophy, may not always be clear. But there are lines, and we should know and accept which side of it we are on.215
Edgar Allan PoeA strong argument for the religion of Christ is this - that offences against Charity are about the only ones which men on their death-beds can be made - not to understand - but to feel - as crime.216
Karl MarxReligion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.216
Thomas PaineOf all the tyrannies that affect mankind, tyranny in religion is the worst.216
Jonathan SwiftI never saw, heard, nor read, that the clergy were beloved in any nation where Christianity was the religion of the country. Nothing can render them popular, but some degree of persecution.216
P. J. O'RourkeI 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.216
Leonardo DiCaprioWomen have been the most persecuted people throughout all of recorded history, more than any race or religion.216
Robert Green IngersollLet us put theology out of religion. Theology has always sent the worst to heaven, the best to hell.216
Robert Green IngersollReligion can never reform mankind because religion is slavery.217
Bertrand RussellI 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.218
George OrwellAs with the Christian religion, the worst advertisement for Socialism is its adherents.218
Martin LutherWar is the greatest plague that can afflict humanity, it destroys religion, it destroys states, it destroys families. Any scourge is preferable to it.218
Wole SoyinkaTrading and religion have always been aligned together in the history of the world, and especially on the African continent.218
Neil deGrasse TysonAny 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.219
John RuskinTo see clearly is poetry, prophecy and religion all in one.219
Tracy ChapmanI'm not sure about anything as far as religion and spirituality go.219
Helen KellerIt's wonderful to climb the liquid mountains of the sky. Behind me and before me is God and I have no fears.220
Ben ShapiroThe Obamacare contraception mandate was never about freedom. It was always about pitting secularism against religion, and using the power of government to sponsor secularism.220
BuddhaHowever many holy words you read, however many you speak, what good will they do you if you do not act on upon them?221
Richard DawkinsWe've all been brought up with the view that religion has some kind of special privileged status. You're not allowed to criticise it.221
Mitt RomneyFreedom. Freedom of religion. Freedom to speak their mind. Freedom to build a life. And yes, freedom to build a business. With their own hands. This is the essence of the American experience.221
Sam HarrisReligion has convinced us that there's something else entirely other than concerns about suffering. There's concerns about what God wants, there's concerns about what's going to happen in the afterlife.221
Steven PinkerThe European wars of religion were more deadly than the First World War, proportionally speaking, and in the range of the Second World War in Europe. The Inquisition, the persecution of heretics and infidels and witches, they racked up pretty high death tolls.221
Tracy ChapmanI don't know - I'm not sure about anything as far as religion and spirituality go.221
William HazlittThere is a heroism in crime as well as in virtue. Vice and infamy have their altars and their religion.221
Mahatma GandhiPrayer is the key of the morning and the bolt of the evening. 222
Charles BaudelaireEven if it were proven that God didn't exist, Religion would still be Saintly and Divine.222
Steven PinkerI think students should know something about religion as a historical phenomenon, in the same way that they should know something about socialism and humanism and the other great ideas that have shaped political philosophies and therefore the course of human events.222
Brad PittI grew up very religious, and I don't have a great relationship with religion.223
Penn JilletteReligion is faith. Faith is belief without evidence. Belief without evidence cannot be shared. Faith is a feeling. Love is also a feeling, but love makes no universal claims. Love is pure.223
Desmond TutuThe God who existed before any religion counts on you to make the oneness of the human family known and celebrated.224
T. S. EliotWe know too much, and are convinced of too little. Our literature is a substitute for religion, and so is our religion.224
John UpdikeThe cinema has done more for my spiritual life than the church. My ideas of fame, success and beauty all originate from the big screen. Whereas Christian religion is retreating everywhere and losing more and more influence; film has filled the vacuum and supports us with myths and action-controlling images.224
Dalai LamaReligion, any religion, no matter what sort of wonderful religion, never be universal. So now education is universal, so we have to sort of find ways and means through education system, from kindergarten up to university level, to make awareness these good things, the values, inner values.225
Thomas JeffersonIt is in our lives and not our words that our religion must be read.225
Charles Caleb ColtonThere are three modes of bearing the ills of life, by indifference, by philosophy, and by religion.225
AristotleA tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other hand, they do less easily move against him, believing that he has the gods on his side.226
Dalai LamaMy main hope is eventually, in modern education field, introduce education about warm-heartedness, not based on religion, but based on common experience and a common sort of sense, and then scientific finding.226
Helen KellerIt 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.226
E. O. WilsonThe biological evolutionary perception of life and of human qualities is radically different from that of traditional religion, whether it's Southern Baptist or Islam or any religion that believes in a supernatural supervalance over humanity.226
Blaise PascalHuman beings must be known to be loved; but Divine beings must be loved to be known.302
Edmund BurkeSuperstition is the religion of feeble minds.302
EpictetusUnless we place our religion and our treasure in the same thing, religion will always be sacrificed.302
Henry Wadsworth LongfellowMorality 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.302
Gertrude SteinWhat is marriage, is marriage protection or religion, is marriage renunciation or abundance, is marriage a stepping-stone or an end. What is marriage.302
Abraham LincolnI care not much for a man's religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it.303
VoltaireSuperstition is to religion what astrology is to astronomy the mad daughter of a wise mother. These daughters have too long dominated the earth.303
Pope FrancisReligion has the right to express its opinion in the service of the people, but God in creation has set us free: it is not possible to interfere spiritually in the life of a person.303
Ezra Taft BensonTruth is truth, whether labeled 'science' or 'religion.'303
Dalai LamaThis is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness.304
VoltaireThe truths of religion are never so well understood as by those who have lost the power of reason.304
Ben CarsonResist this war on God, freedom of religion and freedom of speech.304
Mahatma GandhiThose who say religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion is. 305
Thomas PaineEvery religion is good that teaches man to be good; and I know of none that instructs him to be bad.305
James MadisonAnd 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.305
Brian EnoIf you grow up in a very strong religion like Catholicism you certainly cultivate in yourself a certain taste for the intensity of ideas.305
Honore de BalzacAll humanity is passion; without passion, religion, history, novels, art would be ineffectual.305
Dalai LamaIf you have a particular faith or religion, that is good. But you can survive without it.306
Charles SpurgeonI glory in the distinguishing grace of God and will not, by the grace of God, step one inch from my principles or think of adhering to the present fashionable sort of religion.306
Alan DershowitzTwenty five percent of Israeli citizens are not even Jewish. Anybody can become an Israeli citizen if you qualify. Religion is not a criterion for citizenship.306
Thomas CarlyleThe three great elements of modern civilization, Gun powder, Printing, and the Protestant religion.306
Ellen G. WhiteDo not neglect secret prayer, for it is the soul of religion.307
Bertrand RussellIt 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.309
Douglas AdamsI find the whole business of religion profoundly interesting. But it does mystify me that otherwise intelligent people take it seriously.309
Saint AugustineThe same thing which is now called Christian religion existed among the ancients. They have begun to call 'Christian' the true religion which existed before.309
Camille PagliaChristianity began as a religion of the poor and dispossessed - farmers, fishermen, Bedouin shepherds. There's a great lure to that kind of simplicity and rigor - the discipline, the call to action.309
Gordon B. HinckleyThe whole essence of the Christian religion is based on the atonement of Christ, his death and his resurrection.309
Barack ObamaIt was not a religion that attacked us that September day. It was al-Qaeda. We will not sacrifice the liberties we cherish or hunker down behind walls of suspicion and mistrust.310
George SantayanaWealth, religion, military victory have more rhetorical than efficacious worth.310
Mitt RomneySince Castro took power, the Cuban people have been denied basic human freedoms. No freedom of religion, no freedom of the press, no political freedom. And the regime uses brutality and violence to suppress these freedoms and impose its will.310
Samuel ButlerThe seven deadly sins: Want of money, bad health, bad temper, chastity, family ties, knowing that you know things, and believing in the Christian religion.311
Henry David ThoreauHeaven is under our feet as well as over our heads. 313
Christopher HitchensI 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.313
Erma BombeckLike religion, politics, and family planning, cereal is not a topic to be brought up in public. It's too controversial.313
Thomas PaineIs it not a species of blasphemy to call the New Testament revealed religion, when we see in it such contradictions and absurdities.313
Eric HofferTo know a person's religion we need not listen to his profession of faith but must find his brand of intolerance.313
Dalai LamaConversion is not my intention. Changing religion is not easy. You may develop some kind of confusion or difficulties.314
H. L. MenckenWe 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.314
Arnold SchwarzeneggerNo matter the nationality, no matter the religion, no matter the ethnic background, America brings out the best in people.314
Katy PerryI never took part in the rules and hatred that sometimes go along with religion. But if my parents are happy with what they believe, then I'm happy to stay out of their way. We agree to disagree.314
Elie WieselReligion is a very personal thing for me. Religion has its good moments and its poor moments.315
T. S. EliotI am an Anglo-Catholic in religion, a classicist in literature and a royalist in politics.315
Mahatma GandhiMy religion is based on truth and non-violence. Truth is my God. Non-violence is the means of realising Him.317
Penn JilletteWhen I was a kid, politicians wanted to avoid talking about religion if they could. John F. Kennedy couldn't duck the issue, being Catholic and all. So how did he address it? By reminding Americans that religion shouldn't be an issue, that he was concentrating on big things like poverty and hunger and leading the space race.317
Edmund BurkeNothing is so fatal to religion as indifference.319
Marco RubioYou know what the fastest growing religion in America is? Statism. The growing reliance on government.319
George Bernard ShawNo man ever believes that the Bible means what it says: He is always convinced that it says what he means.320
David BowieThe humanists' replacement for religion: work really hard and somehow you'll either save yourself or you'll be immortal. Of course, that's a total joke, and our progress is nothing. There may be progress in technology but there's no ethical progress whatsoever.321
Malcolm XI 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.321
Mahatma GandhiGentleness, self-sacrifice and generosity are the exclusive possession of no one race or religion. 322
Malcolm XAmerica needs to understand Islam, because this is the one religion that erases from its society the race problem. Throughout my travels in the Muslim world, I have met, talked to, even eaten with people who in America would have been considered 'white,' but the 'white' attitude had been removed from their minds by the religion of Islam.322
Albert EinsteinMorality is of the highest importance - but for us, not for God. 323
Pope FrancisPolitics is the most important of the civil activities and has its own field of action, which is not that of religion.324
Victor HugoI'm religiously opposed to religion.324
Khalil GibranIf the grandfather of the grandfather of Jesus had known what was hidden within him, he would have stood humble and awe-struck before his soul.325
Napoleon BonaparteIf I had to choose a religion, the sun as the universal giver of life would be my god. 325
Albert EinsteinMy 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.401
Elbert HubbardWe are punished by our sins, not for them.401
Ronald ReaganWithin the covers of the Bible are the answers for all the problems men face. 402
Marilyn MansonMy first memories of religion were being taken to Episcopal church. My father was Catholic, but my mother, I believe, was Episcopal. So I sort of veered off into the watered-down version of Catholicism.402
Martha BeckWestern democracies exalt the ideal of social equality, but our economic system arguably emerged from 16th-century Calvinism, a religion whose members believed that God showed favor by bestowing wealth and other forms of success on what they called 'the chosen.'402
Martin Luther King, Jr.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.403
Clint EastwoodI'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.404
Malcolm XThere is nothing in our book, the Koran, that teaches us to suffer peacefully. Our religion teaches us to be intelligent.404
Dalai LamaIf 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.406
Benjamin DisraeliWhere knowledge ends, religion begins.409
Barack ObamaIt's not surprising, then, they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.410
Dalai LamaI 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.410
Martin Luther King, Jr.Science investigates; religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge which is power; religion gives man wisdom which is control.411
Albert CamusI 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.411
Marilyn MansonMy first dissatisfaction has always been with religion.412
Christopher HitchensA lot of people, because of my contempt for the false consolations of religion, think of me as a symbolic public opponent of that in extremis. And sometimes that makes me feel a bit alarmed, to be the repository of other people's hope.414
Khalil GibranYour daily life is your temple and your religion. When you enter into it take with you your all.417
Mahatma GandhiIt 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.417
Napoleon BonaparteReligion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet.419
Benjamin FranklinAll who think cannot but see there is a sanction like that of religion which binds us in partnership in the serious work of the world.420
Billy GrahamThe framers of our Constitution meant we were to have freedom of religion, not freedom from religion.420
Bill GatesJust in terms of allocation of time resources, religion is not very efficient. There's a lot more I could be doing on a Sunday morning.421
Martin Luther King, Jr.Every man lives in two realms: the internal and the external. The internal is that realm of spiritual ends expressed in art, literature, morals, and religion. The external is that complex of devices, techniques, mechanisms, and instrumentalities by means of which we live.423
Christopher HitchensReligion is not going to come up with any new arguments.423
Gilbert K. ChestertonLet your religion be less of a theory and more of a love affair.423
Mahatma GandhiMy religion teaches me that whenever there is distress which one cannot remove, one must fast and pray.426
Albert EinsteinTrue religion is real living; living with all one's soul, with all one's goodness and righteousness.503
Mahatma GandhiJesus is ideal and wonderful, but you Christians - you are not like him. 503
Bertrand RussellReligion is something left over from the infancy of our intelligence, it will fade away as we adopt reason and science as our guidelines.504
Friedrich NietzscheIn Christianity neither morality nor religion come into contact with reality at any point.508
Pope FrancisI 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.508
Ambrose BierceReligion. A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable.509
Ambrose BierceMayonnaise: One of the sauces which serve the French in place of a state religion.510
Robert KiyosakiCommodities such as gold and silver have a world market that transcends national borders, politics, religions, and race. A person may not like someone else's religion, but he'll accept his gold.514
Victor HugoToleration is the best religion.515
Neil deGrasse TysonMost religious people in America fully embrace science. So the argument that religion has some issue with science applies to a small fraction of those who declare that they are religious. They just happen to be a very vocal fraction, so you got the impression that there are more of them than there actually is.516
Richard DawkinsTo fill a world with religion, or religions of the Abrahamic kind, is like littering the streets with loaded guns. Do not be surprised if they are used.517
Albert EinsteinIt was the experience of mystery - even if mixed with fear - that engendered religion.518
Mahatma GandhiReligion is more than life. Remember that his own religion is the truest to every man even if it stands low in the scales of philosophical comparison.521
Thomas CarlyleWonder is the basis of worship.521
Mahatma GandhiOne's own religion is after all a matter between oneself and one's Maker and no one else's.523
Mahatma GandhiA religion that takes no account of practical affairs and does not help to solve them is no religion.524
Mahatma GandhiEvery formula of every religion has in this age of reason, to submit to the acid test of reason and universal assent.525
Richard DawkinsTo an honest judge, the alleged marriage between religion and science is a shallow, empty, spin-doctored sham.525
Abraham LincolnThat 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.604
VoltaireReligion was instituted to make us happy in this life and in the other. What must we do to be happy in the life to come? Be just.609
Albert EinsteinOne 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.610
Johann Wolfgang von GoetheThe Christian religion, though scattered and abroad will in the end gather itself together at the foot of the cross.617
Stephen HawkingScience is increasingly answering questions that used to be the province of religion.622
Bill GatesThe moral systems of religion, I think, are super important.702
Mahatma GandhiReligion is a matter of the heart. No physical inconvenience can warrant abandonment of one's own religion.706
Friedrich NietzscheGod is a thought who makes crooked all that is straight.707
Albert EinsteinI am a deeply religious nonbeliever - this is a somewhat new kind of religion. 708
Abraham LincolnI do not think I could myself be brought to support a man for office whom I knew to be an open enemy of, and scoffer at, religion.709
Bill GatesI agree with people like Richard Dawkins that mankind felt the need for creation myths. Before we really began to understand disease and the weather and things like that, we sought false explanations for them. Now science has filled in some of the realm - not all - that religion used to fill.714
P. J. O'RourkeThere are two factors in American politics that may seem strange to Europeans: race and religion.714
Mahatma GandhiFear of death makes us devoid both of valour and religion. For want of valour is want of religious faith.724
Friedrich NietzscheThere is not enough religion in the world even to destroy religion.807

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