Quotes on Religion

Religion is not a conclusion of the reason.

Author: Lyman Abbott

Nothing 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.

Author: Scott Adams

No religion can long continue to maintain its purity when the church becomes the subservient vassal of the state.

Author: Felix Adler

Beside all this I think there was something personal, being Muslim myself who lived in the west I felt that it was my obligation my duty to tell the truth about Islam. It is a religion that has a 700 million following, yet it's so little known about it which surprised me.

Author: Moustapha Akkad

The first time I sang in the church choir; two hundred people changed their religion.

Author: Fred Allen

If 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.

Author: Roland Allen

When 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.

Author: Kirstie Alley

A 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.

Author: B. Ambedkar

Religion 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.

Author: B. Ambedkar

From 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.

Author: William Ames

One 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.

Author: Kingsley Amis

In 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.

Author: Kofi Annan

The difference between a saint and a hypocrite is that one lies for his religion, the other by it.

Author: Minna Antrim

Religion is one dimension of culture, a transcendent element of it.

Author: Francis Arinze

Every fundamentalist movement I've studied in Judaism, Christianity and Islam is convinced at some gut, visceral level that secular liberal society wants to wipe out religion.

Author: Karen Armstrong

Now I think one of the reasons why religion developed in the way that it did over the centuries was precisely to curb this murderous bent that we have as human beings.

Author: Karen Armstrong

The true meaning of religion is thus, not simply morality, but morality touched by emotion.

Author: Matthew Arnold

Certain I am, that Christian Religion does no where allow Rebellion.

Author: Mary Astell

If I were going to convert to any religion I would probably choose Catholicism because it at least has female saints and the Virgin Mary.

Author: Margaret Atwood

That which we call the Hindu religion is really the Eternal religion because it embraces all others.

Author: Sri Aurobindo

India 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.

Author: Sri Aurobindo

Next to religion, let your care be to promote justice.

Author: Francis Bacon

A little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion.

Author: Francis Bacon

Personally, 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.

Author: Erykah Badu

Science may eventually explain the world of How. The ultimate world of Why may remain for contemplation, philosophy, religion.

Author: Liberty Bailey

There is a great interest in comparative religion and a desire to understand faiths other than our own and even to experiment with exotic cults.

Author: Emily Balch

When Religion and Royalty are swept away, the people will attack the great, and after the great, they will fall upon the rich.

Author: Honore Balzac

But I remember the moment when my father died. I wasn't a very committed Catholic beforehand, but when that happened it suddenly all felt so obvious: I now believe religion is our attempt to find an explanation, for us to feel more protected.

Author: Javier Bardem

The 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.

Author: Dave Barry

Hobbies 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.

Author: Dave Barry

Religion is the possibility of the removal of every ground of confidence except confidence in God alone.

Author: Karl Barth

Jesus does not give recipes that show the way to God as other teachers of religion do. He is himself the way.

Author: Karl Barth

Even if it were proven that God didn't exist, Religion would still be Saintly and Divine.

Author: Charles Baudelaire

Our religion is itself profoundly sad - a religion of universal anguish, and one which, because of its very catholicity, grants full liberty to the individual and asks no better than to be celebrated in each man's own language - so long as he knows anguish and is a painter.

Author: Charles Baudelaire

All 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.

Author: Ulrich Beck

The basic assumption of the secular society is that modernity overcomes religion.

Author: Ulrich Beck

No great advance has been made in science, politics, or religion without controversy.

Author: Lyman Beecher

The point here is that physics followed the data where it seemed to lead, even though some thought the model gave aid and comfort to religion.

Author: Michael Behe

I think what I and most other sociologists of religion wrote in the 1960s about secularization was a mistake. Our underlying argument was that secularization and modernity go hand in hand. With more modernization comes more secularization.

Author: Peter Berger

Religion is to mysticism what popularization is to science.

Author: Henri Bergson

I was little there were times I wanted my parents to be normal. I wanted them to have a religion. I wanted them to have a job, like the parents of every other kid I went to school with.

Author: Gael Bernal

Religious 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.

Author: John Bernal

I do engineering, not religion.

Author: Daniel Bernstein

If your religion is better than mine and your opinion, you have a real problem.

Author: Michael Berryman

Modern societies march towards morality in proportion as they leave religion behind.

Author: Paul Bert

No philosophy, no religion, has ever brought so glad a message to the world as this good news of Atheism.

Author: Annie Besant

Mayonnaise: One of the sauces which serve the French in place of a state religion.

Author: Ambrose Bierce

Our nation and those of the developed world must offer our own resistance to despot leaders who seek to commit murder on the basis of religion or race.

Author: Tim Bishop

Prisons are built with stones of Law. Brothels with the bricks of religion.

Author: William Blake

It is very important that football can see beyond religion but FIFA does not just ignore its impact.

Author: Sepp Blatter

It 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.

Author: H. Blavatsky

Superstition is only the fear of belief, while religion is the confidence.

Author: Countess Blessington

My 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.

Author: Lionel Blue

Early on I saw the repression and idolatry of Stalinism, and when it cracked, I was open to religion again.

Author: Lionel Blue

For some years I deserted religion in favour of Marxism. The republic of goodness seemed more attainable than the Kingdom of God.

Author: Lionel Blue

Religion enabled society to organise itself to debate goodness, just as Greek drama had once done.

Author: Edward Bond

So obviously, any religion embodies some form of rules and expectations for behavior, and even sometimes consequences, and they don't want to hear any of that.

Author: Pat Boone

To die for a religion is easier than to live it absolutely.

Author: Jorge Borges

The major obstacle to a religious renewal is the intellectual classes, who are highly influential and tend to view religion as primitive superstition. They believe that science has left atheism as the only respectable intellectual stance.

Author: Robert Bork

If fishing is a religion, fly fishing is high church.

Author: Tom Brokaw

Existentialism is about being a saint without God; being your own hero, without all the sanction and support of religion or society.

Author: Anita Brookner

I believe there is a moral sense and a global ethic that commands attention from people of every religion and every faith, and people of no faith. But I think what's new is that we now have the capacity to communicate instantaneously across frontiers right across the world.

Author: Gordon Brown

Look at Islam in a rational manner and without demagoguery or emotion. It is the leading religion of the world with 1.5 billion followers.

Author: Zbigniew Brzezinski

It may be that religion is dead, and if it is, we had better know it and set ourselves to try to discover other sources of moral strength before it is too late.

Author: Pearl Buck

Religion can be both good and bad - it is spirituality that counts.

Author: Pat Buckley

Religion united its influence with those of loyalty and love, and the order of knighthood, endowed with all the sanctity and religious awe that attended the priesthood, became an object of ambition to the greatest sovereigns.

Author: Thomas Bulfinch

Religion, like water, may be free, but when they pipe it to you, you've got to help pay for piping. And the Piper!

Author: Abigail Buren

Nothing is so fatal to religion as indifference.

Author: Edmund Burke

Joy in the universe, and keen curiosity about it all - that has been my religion.

Author: John Burroughs

I 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.

Author: George Bush

Religion 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.

Author: Octavia Butler

People in general are equally horrified at hearing the Christian religion doubted, and at seeing it practiced.

Author: Samuel Butler

The new soft totalitarianism that is advancing on the left wants to have a state religion It is an atheist, nihilistic religion - but it is a religion that is obligatory for all.

Author: Rocco Buttiglione

Shelley is truth itself and honour itself notwithstanding his out-of-the-way notions about religion.

Author: George Byron

There's naught, no doubt, so much the spirit calms as rum and true religion.

Author: Lord Byron

That cry of the soul to be lifted out of the bondage of the narrow circle of life, which carries up to God the protest and yearning of suffering man, never finds a more sublime expression than where humanity is oppressed and religion is corrupt.

Author: Hall Caine

Every 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.

Author: Joseph Campbell

Religion is just mind control.

Author: George Carlin

The three great elements of modern civilization, Gun powder, Printing, and the Protestant religion.

Author: Thomas Carlyle

The artist himself may not think he is religious, but if he is sincere his sincerity in itself is religion.

Author: Emily Carr

I'm not a big fan of religion for that reason. But I am a true believer in God, and I have great faith, and I think that a spiritual connection with something is a really important part of our experience. That doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the church.

Author: Shaun Cassidy

I consider myself a religious person. God is something very personal with me and I don't flaunt religion in conversation with others.

Author: Richard Chamberlain

More and more people care about religious tolerance as fewer and fewer care about religion.

Author: Alexander Chase

By 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.

Author: Samuel Chase

In matters of religion and matrimony I never give any advice; because I will not have anybody's torments in this world or the next laid to my charge.

Author: Lord Chesterfield

It is the test of a good religion whether you can joke about it.

Author: Gilbert Chesterton

Some people are that - more than a parent, more than a role model, more than anything less than a religion.

Author: Margaret Cho

The women's movement will present a growing threat to patriarchal religion less by attacking it than by simply leaving it behind.

Author: Carol Christ

I first became interested in women and religion when I was one of the few women doing graduate work in Religious Studies at Yale University in the late 1960's.

Author: Carol Christ

Because religion has such a compelling hold on the deep psyches of so many people, feminists cannot afford to leave it in the hands of the fathers.

Author: Carol Christ

Catholicism is not a soothing religion. It's a painful religion. We're all gluttons for punishment.

Author: Madonna Ciccone

In the relationship between man and religion, the state is firmly committed to a position of neutrality.

Author: Tom Clark

You could say people are living longer because of the decline in religion. Not many people believe in the hereafter, so they keep going.

Author: Cyril Clarke

Religion 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.

Author: John Clarke

I've found a more personal, pagan kind of religion to satisfy the spiritual side of things.

Author: Julian Clary

The Twist was a guided missile launched from the ghetto into the heart of suburbia. The Twist succeeded, as politics, religion and law could never do, in writing in the heart and soul what the Supreme Court could only write on the books.

Author: Eldridge Cleaver

Cruel persecutions and intolerance are not accidents, but grow out of the very essence of religion, namely, its absolute claims.

Author: Morris Cohen

There are three modes of bearing the ills of life, by indifference, by philosophy, and by religion.

Author: Charles Colton

Let us have but one end in view, the welfare of humanity; and let us put aside all selfishness in consideration of language, nationality, or religion.

Author: John Comenius

Kinsey was trying to study sex scientifically, get rid of the overlay of culture and religion.

Author: Bill Condon

After all, is football a game or a religion?

Author: Howard Cosell

For me sport was a religion... with religious sentiment.

Author: Pierre Coubertin

Religion promotes the divine discontent within oneself, so that one tries to make oneself a better person and draw oneself closer to God.

Author: Cyril Cusack

Wars have always started over religion.

Author: Glenn Danzig

Some of you say religion makes people happy. So does laughing gas.

Author: Clarence Darrow

I think there's been a big problem between religion, or organized religion, and spirituality.

Author: Dave Davies

One 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.

Author: Richard Dawkins

A universe with a God would look quite different from a universe without one. A physics, a biology where there is a God is bound to look different. So the most basic claims of religion are scientific. Religion is a scientific theory.

Author: Richard Dawkins

I am against religion because it teaches us to be satisfied with not understanding the world.

Author: Richard Dawkins

Many 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.

Author: Richard Dawkins

Moreover, behind this vague tendency to treat religion as a side issue in modern life, there exists a strong body of opinion that is actively hostile to Christianity and that regards the destruction of positive religion as absolutely necessary to the advance of modern culture.

Author: Christopher Dawson

As 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.

Author: Christopher Dawson

Disturbances 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.

Author: Denis Diderot

The knife of historical relativism... which has cut to pieces all metaphysics and religion must also bring about healing.

Author: Wilhelm Dilthey

Where knowledge ends, religion begins.

Author: Benjamin Disraeli

In Lincoln's day a President's religion was a very private affair. There were no public prayer meetings, no attempts to woo the Religious Right. Few of Lincoln's countrymen knew anything at all of his religious beliefs.

Author: David Donald

I have increasingly, over the years, felt that religion today does our civilization more harm than good.

Author: Mary Douglas

It is very reasonable to worry about the harm done by organized religion, and to prefer looser and more private arrangements.

Author: Mary Douglas

It is only partly true that religion does more harm than good in society. The community makes God into the image it wants, vengeful, or milky sweet, or scrupulously just, and so on.

Author: Mary Douglas

Religion and political expediency go beautifully hand in hand.

Author: Friedrich Durrenmatt

In every religion there is an element of the supernatural, varying with the influence of pure reason over its devotees.

Author: Charles Eastman

The religion of the Indian is the last thing about him that the man of another race will ever understand.

Author: Charles Eastman

The American Indian was an individualist in religion as in war. He had neither a national army nor an organized church.

Author: Charles Eastman

We must not enable anyone to impose his personal view regarding religion on others by force, oppression, or pressure.

Author: Shirin Ebadi

Human rights is a universal standard. It is a component of every religion and every civilization.

Author: Shirin Ebadi

I'm a firm believer and I think my religion is inside.

Author: Billy Eckstine

Some people talk of morality, and some of religion, but give me a little snug property.

Author: Maria Edgeworth

My 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.

Author: Albert Einstein

One 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.

Author: Albert Einstein

Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.

Author: Albert Einstein

I am a deeply religious nonbeliever - this is a somewhat new kind of religion.

Author: Albert Einstein

True religion is real living; living with all one's soul, with all one's goodness and righteousness.

Author: Albert Einstein

We know too much, and are convinced of too little. Our literature is a substitute for religion, and so is our religion.

Author: T. Eliot

I'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.

Author: Jane Elliot

For that again, is what all manner of religion essentially is: childish dependency.

Author: Albert Ellis

There is a very intimate connection between hypnotic phenomena and religion.

Author: Havelock Ellis

Unless we place our religion and our treasure in the same thing, religion will always be sacrificed.

Author: Epictetus

I should like to repeat what I stated recently in the Jeddah Economic Forum in Saudi Arabia: It won't be the religion, but rather the world-view of some of its followers that shall be made current.

Author: Recep Erdogan

In the New Testament, religion is grace and ethics is gratitude.

Author: Thomas Erskine

I am an atheist, and if an atheist and a pope think the same things, there must be something true. There must be some human truth that is beyond religion.

Author: Oriana Fallaci

Religion is more like response to a friend than it is like obedience to an expert.

Author: Austin Farrer

What are my sources of strength? My husband and my three kids, my health-care team, and my religion.

Author: Geraldine Ferraro

It therefore become essential for the future of Judaism itself that its advancement should be correlated with a similar effort to advance the cause of religion generally.

Author: Louis Finkelstein

From the long range point of view, I do not know of anything we can do more important than to make some contribution to the preservation of religion as a vital force in America.

Author: Louis Finkelstein

For as Jews, the problem happens to be more urgent and vital than for others; because the destruction of religion on America will involve the destruction also of the religious training of freedom; and with that our civil liberties.

Author: Louis Finkelstein

I found myself facing a Christian Science Reading Room. My God! It had been eight years. There had never been any renunciation of religion on my part, but like so many people, it was a gradual fading away.

Author: Henry Fonda

Religion is not a burden, not a weight, it is wings.

Author: Harry Fosdick

Historically, more people have died of religion than cancer.

Author: Dick Francis

I 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.

Author: Barney Frank

All 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.

Author: Benjamin Franklin