Source: Man’s Search for Himself (1953), p. 180
Context: We define religion as the assumption that life has meaning. Religion, or lack of it, is shown not in some intellectual or verbal formulations but in one's total orientation to life. Religion is whatever the individual takes to be his ultimate concern. One's religious attitude is to be found at that point where he has a conviction that there are values in human existence worth living and dying for.
“Religion…is a man's total reaction upon life.”
Lecture II, "Circumscription of the Topic"
1900s, The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902)
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William James 246
American philosopher, psychologist, and pragmatist 1842–1910Related quotes
Preface to the Third Edition (August 1942)<!---->
The Mass Psychology of Fascism (1933)
Context: In its pure form, fascism is the sum total of all irrational reactions of the average human character. To the narrow-minded sociologist who lacks the courage to recognize the enormous role played by the irrational in human history, the fascist race theory appears as nothing but an imperialistic interest or even a mere "prejudice." The violence and the ubiquity of these "race prejudices" show their origin from the irrational part of the human character. The race theory is not a creation of fascism. No: fascism is a creation of race hatred and its politically organized expression. Correspondingly, there is a German, Italian, Spanish, Anglo-Saxon, Jewish and Arabian fascism.
“That Religion may flourish upon its true Plan
Of Glory to God and Salvation to Man.”
Source: Miscellaneous Poems (1773), A Paraphrase on the Prayer used in The Church Liturgy for All Sorts and Conditions Of Men, XII
Context: This short Supplication, or Litany, read
When the longer with us is not wont to be said,
Tho' brief in Expression, as fully imports
The Will to all Blessings, for "Men of all Sorts," —
Same brotherly Love, by which Christians are taught
To "pray without ceasing," or limiting
Thought; That Religion may flourish upon its true Plan
Of Glory to God and Salvation to Man.
“Religion is a species of mental disease. It has always had a pathological reaction on mankind.”
As quoted by Mussolini in 2000 Years of Disbelief: Famous People with the Courage to Doubt by James A. Haught (1966) p. 256. From a speech he made in Lausanne, July 1904.
1900s
Source: Religion and Empire: People, Power, and the Life of the Spirit (2003), p. 72
Founding Address (1876), Life and Destiny (1913)
Context: To those who are longing for a higher life, who deeply feel the need of religious satisfactions, we suggest that there is a way in which the demands of the head and the heart may be reconciled. Religion is not necessarily allied with dogma, a new kind of faith is possible, based not upon legend and tradition, not upon the authority of any book, but upon the moral nature of man.
The Kasîdah of Hâjî Abdû El-Yezdî (1870), Note I : Hâjî Abdû, The Man
Context: The Hâjî regrets the excessive importance attached to a possible future state: he looks upon this as a psychical stimulant, a day dream, whose revulsion and reaction disorder waking life. The condition may appear humble and prosaic to those exalted by the fumes of Fancy, by a spiritual dram-drinking which, like the physical, is the pursuit of an ideal happiness. But he is too wise to affirm or to deny the existence of another world. For life beyond the grave there is no consensus of mankind… Even the instinctive sense of our kind is here dumb. We may believe what we are taught: we can know nothing. He would, therefore, cultivate that receptive mood which, marching under the shadow of mighty events, leads to the highest of goals, — the development of Humanity. With him suspension of judgment is a system.
Total Eclipse of the Heart (1983)
Context: Once upon a time I was falling in love
But now I'm only falling apart
There's nothing I can do
A total eclipse of the heart
Once upon a time there was light in my life
But now there's only love in the dark
Nothing I can say
A total eclipse of the heart.