The word ”Christianity” is already a misunderstanding — in reality there has been only one Christian, and he died on the Cross.
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German Philosopher, Scholar, Writer
Although every organized patriarchal religion works overtime to contribute its own brand of misogyny to the myth of woman-hate, woman-fear, and woman-evil, the Roman Catholic Church also carries the immense power of very directly affecting women’s lives everywhere by its stand against birth control and abortion, and by its use of skillful and wealthy lobbies to prevent legislative change. It is an obscenity — an all-male hierarchy, celibate or not, that presumes to rule on the lives and bodies of millions of women.
—Robin Morgan (b.1941) American Activist, Writer, Poet, Editor
The great danger of conversion in all ages has been that when the religion of the high mind is offered to the lower mind, the lower mind, feeling its fascination without understanding it, and being incapable of rising to it, drags it down to its level by degrading it.
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish Playwright
What I want is, not to possess religion, but to have a religion that shall possess me.
—Charles Kingsley (1819–75) English Clergyman, Academic, Historian, Novelist
I believe that the very purpose of our life is to seek happiness. That is clear. Whether one believes in religion or not, whether one believes in this religion or that religion, we all are seeking something better in life. So, I think, the very motion of our life is towards happiness.
—The 14th Dalai Lama (b.1935) Tibetan Buddhist Religious Leader, Civil Rights Leader, Philosopher, Author
Religion would not have enemies, if it were not an enemy to their vices.
—Jean Baptiste Massillon (1663–1742) French Catholic Religious Leader, Theologian
The intellectual is constantly betrayed by his vanity. Godlike he blandly assumes that he can express everything in words; whereas the things one loves, lives, and dies for are not, in the last analysis completely expressible in words.
—Anne Morrow Lindbergh (1906–2001) American Aviator, Author
Those who marry God can become domesticated too — it’s just as hum-drum a marriage as all the others. The word Love means a formal touch of the lips as in the ceremony of the Mass, and Ave Maria like dearest is a phrase to open a letter. This marriage like the world’s marriages was held together by habits and tastes shared in common between God and themselves — it was God’s taste to be worshipped and their taste to worship, but only at stated hours like a suburban embrace on a Saturday night.
—Graham Greene (1904–91) British Novelist, Playwright, Short Story Writer
None but God can satisfy the longings of the immortal soul; as the heart was made for him, he only can fill it.
—Richard Chenevix Trench (1807–86) Irish Anglican Clergyman, Religious Leader, Poet
A religion that never suffices to govern a man will never suffice to save him. — That which does not distinguish him from a sinful world, will never distinguish him from a perishing world.
—John Howe (b.1957) Canadian Artist
Religion is the light of the world.
—The Talmud Sacred Text of the Jewish Faith
Our hope of immortality does not come from any religions, but nearly all religions come from that hope.
—Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–99) American Atheist Politician, Orator, Social Critic, Essayist
Selfishness is the only real atheism; unselfishness the only real religion.
—Israel Zangwill (1864–1926) British Humorist, Novelist, Writer
He who devotes himself to the mere study of religion without engaging in works of love and mercy is like one who has no God.
—The Talmud Sacred Text of the Jewish Faith
If we subject everything to reason, our religion will have nothing mysterious or supernatural; if we violate the principles of reason, our religion will be absurd and ridiculous.
—Blaise Pascal (1623–62) French Catholic Mathematician, Physicist, Inventor, Philosopher, Writer
The object of living is work, experience, and happiness. There is joy in work. All that money can do is buy us someone else’s work in exchange for our own. There is no happiness except in the realization that we have accomplished something.
—Henry Ford (1863–1947) American Businessperson, Engineer
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.
—Charles Baudelaire (1821–67) French Poet, Art Critic, Essayist, Translator
The difference between listening to a radio sermon and going to church…is almost like the difference between calling your girl on the phone and spending an evening with her.
—Dwight L. Moody (1837–99) Christian Religious Leader, Publisher
Nobody can deny but religion is a comfort to the distressed, a cordial to the sick, and sometimes a restraint on the wicked; therefore whoever would argue or laugh it out of the world without giving some equivalent for it ought to be treated as a common enemy.
—Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689–1762) English Aristocrat, Poet, Novelist, Writer
You never see animals going through the absurd and often horrible fooleries of magic and religion. Dogs do not ritually urinate in the hope of persuading heaven to do the same and send down rain. Asses do not bray a liturgy to cloudless skies. Nor do cats attempt, by abstinence from cat’s meat, to wheedle the feline spirits into benevolence. Only man behaves with such gratuitous folly. It is the price he has to pay for being intelligent but not, as yet, quite intelligent enough.
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) English Humanist, Pacifist, Essayist, Short Story Writer, Satirist
God’s commandments are intended to enhance the value and enjoyment of life, but not to mar it and make it gloomy.
—The Talmud Sacred Text of the Jewish Faith
If we think of religion only as a means of escaping what we call the wrath to come, we shall not escape it; we are under the burden of death, if we care only for ourselves.
—James Anthony Froude (1818–94) British Historian, Novelist, Biographer, Editor
Science investigates; religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge which is power; religion gives man wisdom which is control. Science deals mainly with facts; religion deals mainly with values. The two are not rivals. They are complementary.
—Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–68) American Civil Rights Leader, Clergyman
Faith must be enforced by reason. When faith becomes blind it dies.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869–1948) Indian Hindu Political leader
It is difficult to make a man miserable while he feels he is worthy of himself and claims kindred to the great God who made him.
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–65) American Head of State
A 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.
—Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907–72) American Jewish Rabbi
Religion is the manifestation of the Divinity already in man
—Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) Indian Hindu Mystic
Every day people are straying away from the church and going back to God.
—Lenny Bruce (1925–66) American Comedian, Writer, Social Critic, Satirist
We can live without religion and meditation, but we cannot survive without human affection.
—The 14th Dalai Lama (b.1935) Tibetan Buddhist Religious Leader, Civil Rights Leader, Philosopher, Author
The question before the human race is, whether the God of nature shall govern the world by his own laws, or whether priests and kings shall rule it by fictitious miracles.
—John Adams (1735–1826) American Head of State, Lawyer
I have known what the enjoyments and advantages of this life are, and what are the more refined pleasures which learning and intellectual power can bestow; and with all the experience that more than three-score years can give, I now, on the eve of my departure, declare to you, that health is a great blessing; competence obtained by honorable industry is a great blessing; and a great blessing it is, to have kind, faithful, and loving friends and relatives; but that the greatest of all blessings, as it is the most ennobling of all privileges, is to be indeed a Christian.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) English Poet, Literary Critic, Philosopher
The first sign of your becoming religious is that you are becoming cheerful
—Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) Indian Hindu Mystic
A wicked fellow is the most pious when he takes to it. He’ll beat you all at piety.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
I reject any religious doctrine that does not appeal to reason and is in conflict with morality.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869–1948) Indian Hindu Political leader
A man who was completely innocent, offered himself as a sacrifice for the good of others, including his enemies, and became the ransom of the world. It was a perfect act.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869–1948) Indian Hindu Political leader
It is doubtless true that religion has been the world’s psychiatrist throughout the centuries.
—Karl Menninger (1893–1990) American Psychiatrist
England has two books, one which she has made and one which has made her: Shakespeare and the Bible.
—Victor Hugo (1802–85) French Novelist
Here is everything which can lay hold of the eye, ear and imagination — everything which can charm and bewitch the simple and ignorant. I wonder how Luther ever broke the spell.
—John Adams (1735–1826) American Head of State, Lawyer
What the world craves today is a more spiritual and less formal religion. To the man or woman facing death, great conflict, the big problems of human life, the forms of religion are of minor concern, while the spirit of religion is a desperately needed source of inspiration, comfort and strength.
—John D. Rockefeller, Jr. (1874–1960) American Philanthropist, Businessperson
The religion of Christ reaches and changes the heart, which no other religion does.
—William Dean Howells (1837–1920) American Novelist, Short story Author, Editor
Religion maketh the man.
—The Talmud Sacred Text of the Jewish Faith
Whether 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.
—The 14th Dalai Lama (b.1935) Tibetan Buddhist Religious Leader, Civil Rights Leader, Philosopher, Author
Why should a country worship another country’s tin gods, when it has tin gods of its own?
—Dero A. Saunders (1914–2002) American Journalist, Scholar
Take God for your spouse and friend and walk with him continually, and you will not sin and will learn to love, and the things you must do will work out prosperously for you.
—John of the Cross (1542–1591) Spanish Roman Catholic Mystic
One hundred religious persons knit into a unity by careful organizations do not constitute a church any more than eleven dead men make a football team. The first requisite is life, always.
—A. W. Tozer (1897–1963) American Christian Pastor, Preacher, Author, Editor
Doubt is part of all religion. All the religious thinkers were doubters.
—Isaac Bashevis Singer (1902–91) Polish-born American Children’s Books Writer, Novelist, Short Story Writer
Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn’t argue with that; I’m right and I will be proved right. We’re more popular than Jesus now; I don’t know which will go first — rock and roll or Christianity.
—John Lennon (1940–80) British Singer, Songwriter, Musician, Activist
As selfishness and complaint pervert and cloud the mind, so love with its joy clears and sharpens the vision.
—Helen Keller (1880–1968) American Author
It often happens that I wake at night and begin to think about a serious problem and decide I must tell the Pope about it. Then I wake up completely and remember that I am the Pope.
—Pope John XXIII (1881–1963) Italian Catholic Religious Leader, Pope
And I myself a Catholic will be,
So far at least, great saint, to pray to thee.
Hail, Bard triumphant! and some care bestow
On us, the Poets militant below.
—Abraham Cowley (1618–67) English Poet
To die for a religion is easier than to live it absolutely.
—Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) Argentine Writer, Essayist, Poet
It’s incongruous that the older we get, the more likely we are to turn in the direction of religion. Less vivid and intense ourselves, closer to the grave, we begin to conceive of ourselves as immortal.
—Edward Hoagland (b.1932) American Essayist, Novelist
The more I study religions the more I am convinced that man never worshipped anything but himself.
—Richard Burton (1925–84) Welsh Actor
All the principles which religion teaches, and all the habits which it forms, are favorable to strength of mind. It will be found that whatever purifies, also fortifies the heart.
—Hugh Blair (1718–1800) Scottish Clergyman, Rhetorician, Literary Critic, Philosopher
Church attendance is as vital to a disciple as a transfusion of rich, healthy blood to a sick man.
—Dwight L. Moody (1837–99) Christian Religious Leader, Publisher
The true meaning of religion is thus, not simply morality, but morality touched by emotion.
—Matthew Arnold
Finding 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
—Robert Owen (1771–1858) British Social Reformer, Philosopher
It is not God that is worshipped but the group or authority that claims to speak in His name. Sin becomes disobedience to authority not violation of integrity.
—Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (1888–1975) Indian Philosopher
Without religion there can be no true morality.
—The Talmud Sacred Text of the Jewish Faith
I count religion but a childish toy, and hold there is no sin but innocence.
—Christopher Marlowe (1564–93) English Playwright, Poet, Translator
It is indolence… Indolence and love of ease; a want of all laudable ambition, of taste for good company, or of inclination to take the trouble of being agreeable, which make men clergymen. A clergyman has nothing to do but be slovenly and selfish; read the newspaper, watch the weather, and quarrel with his wife. His curate does all the work and the business of his own life is to dine.
—Jane Austen (1775–1817) English Novelist
Religion is the fashionable substitute for belief.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet
The best perfection of a religious man is to do common things in a perfect manner.
—Bonaventure (1221–74) Italian Christian Scholar, Theologian, Philosopher
A Jew without Jews, without Judaism, without Zionism, without Jewishness, without a temple or an army or even a pistol, a Jew clearly without a home, just the object itself, like a glass or an apple.
—Philip Roth (1933–2018) American Novelist, Short Story Writer
Never trust anybody not of sound religion, for he that is false to God can never be true to man.
—William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley (1521–98) English Political leader
Every condition of life has its perils and its advantages; and the office of religion is, not to change that in which Providence has placed us, but to strengthen and sanctify our hearts that we may resist the temptations, and improve the opportunities of blessings presented to us.
—George Washington Bethune
Religion is what keeps the poor man from murdering the rich
—Napoleon I (1769–1821) French Monarch
Bigger things than the State will fall, all religion will fall.
—Henrik Ibsen (1828–1906) Norwegian Playwright
On religious issues there can be little or no compromise. There is no position on which people are so immovable as their religious beliefs. There is no more powerful ally one can claim in a debate than Jesus Christ, or God, or Allah, or whatever one calls this supreme being. But like any powerful weapon, the use of God’s name on one’s behalf should be used sparingly. The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. They are trying to force government leaders into following their position 100 percent. If you disagree with these religious groups on a particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of money or votes or both. I’m frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in A, B, C, and D. Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me? And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of ‘conservatism’.
—Barry Goldwater (1909–98) American Elected Representative, Businessperson, Politician
Now a Jew, in the dictionary, is one who is descended from the ancient tribes of Judea, or one who is regarded as descended from that tribe. That’s what it says in the dictionary; but you and I know what a Jew is — One Who Killed Our Lord. And although there should be a statute of limitations for that crime, it seems that those who neither have the actions nor the gait of Christians, pagan or not, will bust us out, unrelenting dues, for another deuce.
—Lenny Bruce (1925–66) American Comedian, Writer, Social Critic, Satirist
The loss of popular respect for religion is the dry rot of social institutions. The idea of God as the Creator and Father of all mankind is in the moral world, what gravitation is in the natural; it holds all together and causes them to revolve around a common center. Take this away, and men drop apart; there is no such thing as collective humanity, but only separate molecules, with no more cohesion than so many grains of sand.
—Henry Martyn Field
Is discord going to show itself while we are still fighting, is the Jew once again worth less than another? Oh, it is sad, very sad, that once more, for the umpteenth time, the old truth is confirmed: What one Christian does is his own responsibility, what one Jew does is thrown back at all Jews.”
—Anne Frank (1929–45) Holocaust Victim
Churchgoers are like coals in a fire. When they cling together, they keep the flame aglow; when they separate, they die out.
—Billy Graham (1918–91) American Baptist Religious Leader
The man without religion is as a ship without a rudder.
—B. C. Forbes (1880–1954) Scottish-born American Journalist, Publisher
Difference of religion breeds more quarrels than difference of politics.
—Wendell Phillips (1811–84) American Abolitionist, Social Activist, Lawyer, Orator
The essence of all religions is one. Only their approaches are different.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869–1948) Indian Hindu Political leader
What the Puritans gave the world was not thought, but action.
—Wendell Phillips (1811–84) American Abolitionist, Social Activist, Lawyer, Orator
If I could choose what of all things would be at the same time the most delightful and useful to me, I should prefer a firm religious belief to every other blessing; for this makes life a discipline of goodness; creates new hopes when all earthly ones vanish; throws over the decay of existence the most gorgeous of all lights; awakens life even in death; makes even torture and shame the ladder of ascent to paradise; and far above all combinations of earthly hopes, calls up the most delightful visions of the future, the security of everlasting joys, where the sensualist and the skeptic view only gloom, decay, annihilation, and despair.
—Humphry Davy (1778–1829) British Chemist, Inventor
What a man believes may be ascertained, not from his creed, but from the assumptions on which he habitually acts.
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish Playwright
To fall in love is to create a religion that has a fallible god.
—Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) Argentine Writer, Essayist, Poet
Toleration is the best religion.
—Victor Hugo (1802–85) French Novelist
God is a concept by which we measure our pain.
—John Lennon (1940–80) British Singer, Songwriter, Musician, Activist
I judge a man by his actions with men, much more than by his declarations Godwards — When I find him to be envious, carping, spiteful, hating the successes of others, and complaining that the world has never done enough for him, I am apt to doubt whether his humility before God will atone for his want of manliness.
—Anthony Trollope (1815–82) English Novelist
The first time I sang in the church choir; two hundred people changed their religion.
—Fred Allen (1894–1956) American Humorist, Radio Personality
For this reason the Bible is a book of eternal and effective power; because, as long as the world lasts, no one will say: I comprehend it in the whole and understand it in the particular. Rather we must modestly say it on the whole it is venerable, and in the particular practical.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German Poet
I do not know how to teach philosophy without becoming a disturber of established religion
—Baruch Spinoza (1632–77) Dutch Philosopher
It was an admirable and true saying of Plutarch, “That a city may as well be built in the air, as a commonwealth or kingdom be either constituted or preserved without the support of religion.”
—Beilby Porteus (1731–1809) English Anglican Reformer, Abolitionist
Better than hide-and-seek, I like the game called Sardines. In Sardines the person who is IT goes and hides, and everybody goes looking for him. When you find him, you get in with him and hide there with him. Pretty soon everybody is hiding together, all stacked in a small space like puppies in a pile. And pretty soon somebody giggles and somebody laughs and everybody gets found.
Medieval theologians even described God, in hide-and-seek terms, calling him Deus Absconditus. But me, I think old God is a Sardine player. And will be found the same way everybody gets found in Sardines – by the sound of laughter of those heaped together at the end.
—Robert Fulghum (b.1937) American Unitarian Universalist Author, Essayist, Clergyman
Religion is the last refuge of human savagery
—Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947) English Mathematician, Philosopher, Logician
Men must be governed by God or they will be ruled by tyrants.
—William Penn (1644–1718) American Entrepreneur, Political leader, Philosopher
We are, each of us, angels with only one wing. And we can only fly embracing each other.
—Luciano de Crescenzo (b.1928) Italian Writer, Film Actor, Director, Engineer
It 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.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869–1948) Indian Hindu Political leader
In prayer it is better to have a heart without words, than words without a heart.
—John Bunyan (1628–88) English Christian Writer, Preacher
To become a popular religion, it is only necessary for a superstition to enslave a philosophy.
—William Ralph Inge (1860–1954) English Anglican Clergyman, Priest, Mystic
This 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.
—The 14th Dalai Lama (b.1935) Tibetan Buddhist Religious Leader, Civil Rights Leader, Philosopher, Author
Religion points to that area of human experience where in one way or another man comes upon mystery as a summons to pilgrimage.
—Frederick Buechner (b.1926) American Presbyterian Clergyman, Novelist, Short Story Writer, Essayist, Theologian
Religion is an illusion and it derives its strength from the fact that it falls in with our instinctual desires.
—Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) Austrian Psychiatrist, Psychoanalytic
The act of bell ringing is symbolic of all proselytizing religions. It implies the pointless interference with the quiet of other people.
—Ezra Pound (1885-1972) American Poet, Translator, Critic
Can a mortal ask questions which God finds unanswerable? Quite easily, I should think. All nonsense questions are unanswerable.
—C. S. Lewis (1898–1963) Irish-born British Novelist
The religious superstition is encouraged by means of the institution of churches, processions, monuments, festivities….The so-called clergy stupefy the masses….They befog the people and keep them in an eternal condition of stupefaction
—Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) Russian Novelist