“Religions are the exponents of the highest comprehension of life … within a given age in a given society … a basis for evaluating human sentiments.”

— Leo Tolstoy

What is Art? (1897)
Context: Humanity unceasingly strives forward from a lower, more partial and obscure understanding of life to one more general and more lucid. And in this, as in every movement, there are leaders — those who have understood the meaning of life more clearly than others — and of those advanced men there is always one who has in his words and life, manifested this meaning more clearly, accessibly, and strongly than others. This man's expression … with those superstitions, traditions, and ceremonies which usually form around the memory of such a man, is what is called a religion. Religions are the exponents of the highest comprehension of life … within a given age in a given society … a basis for evaluating human sentiments. If feelings bring people nearer to the religion's ideal … they are good, if these estrange them from it, and oppose it, they are bad.

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Leo Tolstoy456

Russian writer 1828–1910

Roger Haight (1936) American theologian

Source: Dynamics Of Theology, Chapter Ten, Method in theology, p. 192

“Faith, hope, love, and insight are the highest achievements of human effort. They are found-given-by experience.”

C.G. Jung book Modern Man in Search of a Soul

Source: Modern Man in Search of a Soul

“You were given life; it is your duty (and also your entitlement as a human being) to find something beautiful within life, no matter how slight.”

Elizabeth Gilbert (1969) American writer

“The heresy of one age becomes the orthodoxy of the next. Mere tolerance has given place to a sentiment of brotherhood between sincere men of all denominations.”

Helen Keller book Optimism

Optimism (1903)
Context: The idea of brotherhood redawns upon the world with a broader significance than the narrow association of members in a sect or creed; and thinkers of great soul like Lessing challenge the world to say which is more godlike, the hatred and tooth-and-nail grapple of conflicting religions, or sweet accord and mutual helpfulness. Ancient prejudice of man against his brother-man wavers and retreats before the radiance of a more generous sentiment, which will not sacrifice men to forms, or rob them of the comfort and strength they find in their own beliefs. The heresy of one age becomes the orthodoxy of the next. Mere tolerance has given place to a sentiment of brotherhood between sincere men of all denominations.

“Even the nonreligious may exercise aesthetic judgment in matters of religion, and indeed our age has given the unbelieving a sophisticated taste in religious literature.”

Lionel Trilling (1905–1975) American academic

Introduction
The Portable Matthew Arnold (Viking Press, 1949)

“When women thrive, all of society benefits and succeeding generations are given a better start in life.”

Kofi Annan (1938–2018) 7th Secretary-General of the United Nations

Quoted in: Kabir, Hajara Muhammad (2010). Northern women development. [Nigeria]. ISBN 978-978-906-469-4. OCLC 890820657.

“Religion. It's given people hope in a world torn apart by religion.”

Jon Stewart (1962) American political satirist, writer, television host, actor, media critic and stand-up comedian

“If it be of the highest importance to man, as an individual, that his religion should be true, the case of society is not the same. Society has no future life to hope for or to fear; and provided the citizens profess a religion, the peculiar tenets of that religion are of very little importance to its interests.”

Alexis De Tocqueville book Democracy in America

Variant translation: Though it is very important for man as an individual that his religion should be true, that is not the case for society. Society has nothing to fear or hope from another life; what is most important for it is not that all citizens profess the true religion but that they should profess religion.
Source: Democracy in America, Volume I (1835), Chapter XV-IXX, Chapter XVII.

“The 20th century, with its scores of millions of supernumerary dead, has been called the age of ideology. And the age of ideology, clearly, was a mere hiatus in the age of religion, which shows no sign of expiry. Since it is no longer permissible to disparage any single faith or creed, let us start disparaging all of them. To be clear: an ideology is a belief system with an inadequate basis in reality; a religion is a belief system with no basis in reality whatever. Religious belief is without reason and without dignity, and its record is near-universally dreadful. It is straightforward — and never mind, for now, about plagues and famines: if God existed, and if He cared for humankind, He would never have given us religion.”

Martin Amis (1949) Welsh novelist

"The voice of the lonely crowd" (2002)

“Decision theory, similarly analyzing rational choices, within human organizations, based upon examination of a given situation and its possible outcomes.”

Ludwig von Bertalanffy (1901–1972) austrian biologist and philosopher

General System Theory (1968), 4. Advances in General Systems Theory

“Religions are the exponents of the highest comprehension of life … within a given age in a given society … a basis for evaluating human sentiments.”

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