Quotes about religion

A collection of quotes on the topic of god, christ, religion, people.

Best quotes about religion

Friedrich Nietzsche photo

“I would believe only in a God that knows how to dance.”

Variant: I would only believe in a god who could dance.
Source: Thus Spoke Zarathustra

Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
Frank Zappa photo

“Music is the only religion that delivers the goods.”

Frank Zappa (1940–1993) American musician, songwriter, composer, and record and film producer
Christopher Hitchens photo

“Human decency is not derived from religion. It precedes it.”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

Source: god is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything

50 Cent photo

“Being broke is against my religion.”

50 Cent (1975) American rapper, actor, businessman, investor and television producer

Ryder Music
Song lyrics, The Massacre (2005)

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk photo

“Those who use religion for their own benefit are detestable.”

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (1881–1938) Turkish army officer, revolutionary, and the first President of Turkey

As quoted in Kemalizm, Laiklik ve Demokrasi [Kemalism, Laicism and Democracy] (1994) by Ahmet Taner Kışlalı
Context: Religion is an important institution. A nation without religion cannot survive. Yet it is also very important to note that religion is a link between Allah and the individual believer. The brokerage of the pious cannot be permitted. Those who use religion for their own benefit are detestable. We are against such a situation and will not allow it. Those who use religion in such a manner have fooled our people; it is against just such people that we have fought and will continue to fight. Know that whatever conforms to reason, logic, and the advantages and needs of our people conforms equally to Islam. If our religion did not conform to reason and logic, it would not be the perfect religion, the final religion.

Averroes photo

“This is one of the most intricate problems of religion.”

Part 3: Of Fate And Predestination; Opening sentence
On the Harmony of Religions and Philosophy
Context: This is one of the most intricate problems of religion. For if you look into the traditional arguments () about this problem you will find them contradictory; such also being the case with arguments of reason. The contradiction in the arguments of the first kind is found in the Qur'an and the Hadith.

Georges Lemaître photo

“There is no conflict between science and religion.”

Georges Lemaître (1894–1966) Belgian scientist and priest

New York Times, February 19, 1933 http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9A02E7DA1539E033A2575AC1A9649C946294D6CF&nytmobile=0&legacy=true

Salman Rushdie photo
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada photo

“Religion means to know God and to love Him.”

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (1896–1977) Indian guru

Source: The Science of Self-Realization

Quotes about religion

“If you are emotionally attached to your tribe, religion or political leaning to the point that truth and justice become secondary considerations, your education and exposure is useless. If you cannot reason beyond petty sentiments, you are a liability.”

Chuba Okadigbo (1941–2003) Nigerian politician

Source: Fani-Kayode urges Buhari to take Okadigbo’s advice, Ifreke Inyang, 23 October 2017, Daily Post, Nigeria, 18 April 2018 http://dailypost.ng/2017/10/23/fani-kayode-urges-buhari-take-okadigbos-advice/,

Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
Carl Sagan photo

“Consider again that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar", every "supreme leader", every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there — on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.
Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.
It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.”

Source: Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space (1994), p. 8, Supplemental image at randi.org http://www.randi.org/images/122801-BlueDot.jpg

Adolf Hitler photo

“The only religion I respect is Islam. The only prophet I admire is the Prophet Muhammad.”

Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) Führer and Reich Chancellor of Germany, Leader of the Nazi Party

Found in George Michael's 2006 book, The Enemy of My Enemy, and also in Jake Neuman's 2015 book, Islam Sharia Law and Jihad are Treason.

Source: 1 https://books.google.com/books?id=RvLtAAAAMAAJ&q=%22the+only+religion+i+respect+is+islam%22

Source: 2 https://books.google.com/books?id=HjKKCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA203&dq="the+only+religion+i+respect+is+islam"
Misattributed

Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
Albert Einstein photo

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

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Source: Attributed in posthumous publications, Einstein and the Poet (1983), p. 94
Context: Religion and science go together. As I've said before, science without religion is lame and religion without science is blind. They are interdependent and have a common goal—the search for truth. Hence it is absurd for religion to proscribe Galileo or Darwin or other scientists. And it is equally absurd when scientists say that there is no God. The real scientist has faith, which does not mean that he must subscribe to a creed. Without religion there is no charity. The soul given to each of us is moved by the same living spirit that moves the universe.

Emma Goldman photo

“Anarchism stands for the liberation of the human mind from the dominion of religion and liberation of the human body from the coercion of property; liberation from the shackles and restraint of government. It stands for a social order based on the free grouping of individuals…”

Variant: Anarchism, then, really stands for the liberation of the human mind from the dominion of religion; the liberation of the human body from the dominion of property; liberation from the shackles and restraint of government.
Source: Anarchism and Other Essays

Emil M. Cioran photo
Bismillah Khan photo

“God knows no religion. God belongs to mankind. I realized this while playing at the Balaji temple.”

Bismillah Khan (1916–2006) Indian musician

Quote, Encyclopedia of Bharat Ratnas

David Bowie photo
Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
Lemmy Kilmister photo
Chris Hedges photo
Dan Brown photo
Margaret Fuller photo
Oscar Wilde photo
Abraham Lincoln photo

“When I do good I feel good, when I do bad I feel bad, and that's my religion.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

Quoted in 3:439 Herndon's Lincoln (1890), p. 439 http://books.google.com/books?id=rywOAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA439&dq=%22when+i+do+good+i+feel+good%22: Inasmuch as he was so often a candidate for public office Mr. Lincoln said as little about his religious code as possible, especially if he failed to coincide with the orthodox world. In illustration of his religious code I once heard him say that it was like that of an old man named Glenn, in Indiana, whom he heard speak at a church meeting, and who said: "When I do good I feel good, when I do bad I feel bad, and that's my religion."
Posthumous attributions

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart photo

“I know myself, and I have such a sense of religion that I shall never do anything which I would not do before the whole world; but I am alarmed at the very thoughts of being in the society of people, during my journey, whose mode of thinking is so entirely different from mine (and from that of all good people). But of course they must do as they please. I have no heart to travel with them, nor could I enjoy one pleasant hour, nor know what to talk about; for, in short, I have no great confidence in them. Friends who have no religion cannot be long our friends.”

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791) Austrian Romantic composer

Letter to Leopold Mozart (Mannheim, 2 February 1778), from The letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, 1769-1791, translated, from the collection of Ludwig Nohl, by Lady [Grace] Wallace (Oxford University Press, 1865, digitized 2006) vol. I, # 91 (p. 164) http://books.google.com/books?vid=0SGwLiCNxu7qZ5ch&id=KEgBAAAAQAAJ&printsec=titlepage&dq=%22The+letters+of+Wolfgang+Amadeus+Mozart,+1769-1791%22&hl=en#PRA1-PA164,M1

Irena Sendler photo

“I was brought up to believe that a person must be rescued when drowning, regardless of religion and nationality.”

Irena Sendler (1910–2008) Polish resistance fighter and Holocaust rescuer

As quoted in "Holocaust heroine's survival tale" by Adam Easton in BBC News (3 March 2005) http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4314145.stm

Anthony Hopkins photo
Jeff Buckley photo
Chief Joseph photo
Ronald Reagan photo

“We establish no religion in this country, we command no worship, we mandate no belief, nor will we ever. Church and state are, and must remain, separate.”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

Speech to Temple Hillel and Community Leaders in Valley Stream http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/US-Israel/RR10_26_84.html (26 October 1984)
1980s, First term of office (1981–1985)
Context: We in the United States, above all, must remember that lesson [of the Holocaust], for we were founded as a nation of openness to people of all beliefs. And so we must remain. Our very unity has been strengthened by our pluralism. We establish no religion in this country, we command no worship, we mandate no belief, nor will we ever. Church and state are, and must remain, separate. All are free to believe or not believe, all are free to practice a faith or not, and those who believe are free, and should be free, to speak of and act on their belief.

Nathuram Godse photo
Alexis Karpouzos photo
Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
Steven Weinberg photo
Rowan Atkinson photo
Temple Grandin photo
Peter F. Drucker photo
Jonathan Edwards photo
Leon Trotsky photo
Sitting Bull photo

“Endurance is composed of four attributes: eagerness, fear, piety and anticipation (of death). so whoever is eager for Paradise will ignore temptations; whoever fears the fire of Hell will abstain from sins; whoever practices piety will easily bear the difficulties of life and whoever anticipates death will hasten towards good deeds.
Conviction has also four aspects to guard oneself against infatuations of sin; to search for explanation of truth through knowledge; to gain lessons from instructive things and to follow the precedent of the past people, because whoever wants to guard himself against vices and sins will have to search for the true causes of infatuation and the true ways of combating them out and to find those true ways one has to search them with the help of knowledge, whoever gets fully acquainted with various branches of knowledge will take lessons from life and whoever tries to take lessons from life is actually engaged in the study of the causes of rise and fall of previous civilizations.
Justice also has four aspects depth of understanding, profoundness of knowledge, fairness of judgment and dearness of mind; because whoever tries his best to understand a problem will have to study it, whoever has the practice of studying the subject he is to deal with, will develop a clear mind and will always come to correct decisions, whoever tries to achieve all this will have to develop ample patience and forbearance and whoever does this has done justice to the cause of religion and has led a life of good repute and fame.
Jihad is divided into four branches: to persuade people to be obedient to Allah; to prohibit them from sin and vice; to struggle (in the cause of Allah) sincerely and firmly on all occasions and to detest the vicious. Whoever persuades people to obey the orders of Allah provides strength to the believers; whoever dissuades them from vices and sins humiliates the unbelievers; whoever struggles on all occasions discharges all his obligations and whoever detests the vicious only for the sake of Allah, then Allah will take revenge on his enemies and will be pleased with Him on the Day of Judgment.”

Nahj al-Balagha

Cristoforo Colombo photo
Avicenna photo

“The world is divided into men who have wit and no religion and men who have religion and no wit.”

Avicenna (980–1037) medieval Persian polymath, physician, and philosopher

This was declared without citation to have been attributed to Avicenna in A Rationalist Encyclopaedia : A Book of Reference on Religion, Philosophy, Ethics, and Science (1950), by Joseph McCabe, p. 43; it was also later wrongly attributed to Averroes in The Atheist World‎ (1991) by Madalyn Murray O'Hair, p. 46. It actually originates as a statement by the atheist Al-Maʿarri, earlier translated into English in A Short History of Freethought Ancient and Modern (1906) by John Mackinnon Robertson, Vol. I, Ch. VIII : Freethought under Islam, p. 269, in the form: "The world holds two classes of men ; intelligent men without religion, and religious men without intelligence."
Misattributed

Werner Heisenberg photo
Al-Maʿarri photo

“The inhabitants of the earth are of two sorts:
Those with brains, but no religion,
And those with religion, but no brains.”

Al-Maʿarri (973–1057) Medieval Arab philosopher

As quoted in The Crusades Through Arab Eyes (1984) by Amin Maalouf, p. 37
Variant translations:
The world holds two classes of men; intelligent men without religion, and religious men without intelligence.
A Short History of Freethought Ancient and Modern (1906) by John Mackinnon Robertson, Vol. I, Ch. VIII: Freethought under Islam, p. 269
The world is divided into men who have wit and no religion and men who have religion and no wit.
This form of the statement has been most commonly misatributted — to Avicenna, in A Rationalist Encyclopaedia: A Book of Reference on Religion, Philosophy, Ethics, and Science (1950) by Joseph McCabe, p. 43, and later to Averroes, in The Atheist World‎ (1991) by Madalyn Murray O'Hair, p. 46.
Original: اِثْنَانِ أَهْلُ الْأَرْضِ ذُو عَقْلٍ بِلَا دِينٍ وَآخَرُ دَيِّنٌ لَا عَقْلَ لَهُ

Monte Melkonian photo
Babur photo

“On Monday the 9th of the first Jumada, we got out of the suburbs of Agra, on our journey (safar) for the Holy War, and dismounted in the open country, where we remained three or four days to collect our army and be its rallying-point…On this occasion I received a secret inspiration and heard an infallible voice say: 'Is not the time yet come unto those who believe, that their hearts should humbly submit to the admonition of Allah, and that truth which hath been revealed? Thereupon we set ourselves to extirpate the things of wickedness…
Above all, adequate thanks cannot be rendered for a benefit than which none is greater in the world and nothing is more blessed, in the world to come, to wit, victory over most powerful infidels and dominion over wealthiest heretics, these are the unbelievers, the wicked.'In the eyes of the judicious, no blessing can be greater than this…. Previous to the rising in Hindustan of the Sun of dominion and the emergence there of the light of the Shahansha's (i. e. Babur's) Khalifate the authority of that execrated pagan (Sanga) - at the Judgment Day he shall have no friend - was such that not one of all the exalted sovereigns of this wide realm, such as the Sultan of Delhi, the Sultan of Gujarat and the Sultan of Mandu, could cope with this evil-dispositioned one, without the help of other pagans…
Ten powerful chiefs, each the leader of a pagan host, uprose in rebellion, as smoke rises, and linked themselves, as though enchained, to that perverse one (Sanga); and this infidel decade who, unlike the blessed ten, uplifted misery-freighted standards which denounce unto them excruciating punishment, had many dependents, and troops, and wide-extended lands…. The protagonists of the royal forces fell, like divine destiny, on that one-eyed Dajjal who to understanding men, shewed the truth of the saying, When Fate arrives, the eye becomes blind, and setting before their eyes the scripture which saith, whosoever striveth to promote the true religion, striveth for the good of his own soul, they acted on the precept to which obedience is due, Fight against infidels and hypocrites…
The pagan right wing made repeated and desperate attack on the left wing of the army of Islam, falling furiously on the holy warriors, possessors of salvation, but each time was made to turn back or, smitten with the arrows of victory, was made to descend into Hell, the house of perdition: they shall be thrown to bum therein, and an unhappy dwelling shall it be. Then the trusty amongst the nobles, Mumin Ataka and Rustam Turkman betook themselves to the rear of the host of darkened pagans…
At the moment when the holy warriors were heedlessly flinging away their lives, they heard a secret voice say, Be not dismayed, neither be grieved, for, if ye believe, ye shall be exalted above the unbelievers, and from the infallible Informer heard the joyful words, Assistance is from Allah, and a speedy victory! And do thou bear glad tiding to true believers. Then they fought with such delight that the plaudits of the saints of the Holy Assembly reached them and the angels from near the Throne, fluttered round their heads like moths.”

Babur (1483–1530) 1st Mughal Emperor

Babur writing about the battle against the Rajput Confederacy led by Maharana Sangram Singh of Mewar. In Babur-Nama, translated into English by A.S. Beveridge, New Delhi reprint, 1979, pp. 547-572.

Haile Selassie photo

“The progress of science can be said to be harmful to religion only in so far as it is used for evil aims and not because it claims a priority over religion in its revelation to man. It is important that spiritual advancement must keep pace with material advancement.”

Haile Selassie (1892–1975) Emperor of Ethiopia

Interview in The Voice of Ethiopia (5 April 1948).
Context: The progress of science can be said to be harmful to religion only in so far as it is used for evil aims and not because it claims a priority over religion in its revelation to man. It is important that spiritual advancement must keep pace with material advancement. When this comes to be realized man's journey toward higher and more lasting values will show more marked progress while the evil in him recedes into the background. Knowing that material and spiritual progress are essential to man, we must ceaselessly work for the equal attainment of both. Only then shall we be able to acquire that absolute inner calm so necessary to our well-being.
It is only when a people strike an even balance between scientific progress and spiritual and moral advancement that it can be said to possess a wholly perfect and complete personality and not a lopsided one.

Paul Dirac photo

“If we are honest — and scientists have to be — we must admit that religion is a jumble of false assertions, with no basis in reality. The very idea of God is a product of the human imagination.”

Paul Dirac (1902–1984) theoretical physicist

Remarks made during the Fifth Solvay International Conference (October 1927), as quoted in Physics and Beyond: Encounters and Conversations (1971) by Werner Heisenberg, pp. 85-86; these comments prompted the famous remark later in the day by Wolfgang Pauli: "Well, our friend Dirac, too, has a religion, and its guiding principle is "God does not exist and Dirac is His prophet." Variant translations and paraphrases of that comment are listed in the "Quotes about Dirac" section below.
Context: If we are honest — and scientists have to be — we must admit that religion is a jumble of false assertions, with no basis in reality. The very idea of God is a product of the human imagination. It is quite understandable why primitive people, who were so much more exposed to the overpowering forces of nature than we are today, should have personified these forces in fear and trembling. But nowadays, when we understand so many natural processes, we have no need for such solutions. I can't for the life of me see how the postulate of an Almighty God helps us in any way. What I do see is that this assumption leads to such unproductive questions as why God allows so much misery and injustice, the exploitation of the poor by the rich and all the other horrors He might have prevented. If religion is still being taught, it is by no means because its ideas still convince us, but simply because some of us want to keep the lower classes quiet. Quiet people are much easier to govern than clamorous and dissatisfied ones. They are also much easier to exploit. Religion is a kind of opium that allows a nation to lull itself into wishful dreams and so forget the injustices that are being perpetrated against the people. Hence the close alliance between those two great political forces, the State and the Church. Both need the illusion that a kindly God rewards — in heaven if not on earth — all those who have not risen up against injustice, who have done their duty quietly and uncomplainingly. That is precisely why the honest assertion that God is a mere product of the human imagination is branded as the worst of all mortal sins.

Oscar Wilde photo

“Religion is like a blind man looking in a black room for a black cat that isn't there, and finding it.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

This quote was instead first mentioned in a 1931 book titled “Since Calvary: An Interpretation of Christian History” by the comparative religion specialist Lewis Browne.
Disputed

George Orwell photo
Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
Richard Siken photo
Anne Frank photo
Christopher Paolini photo
Terry Pratchett photo
George Orwell photo
L. Ron Hubbard photo

“You don't get rich writing science fiction. If you want to get rich, you start a religion.”

L. Ron Hubbard (1911–1986) American science fiction author, philosopher, cult leader, and the founder of the Church of Scientology

Response to a question from the audience during a meeting of the Eastern Science Fiction Association on (7 November 1948), as quoted in a 1994 affidavit by Sam Moskowitz.
This statement is similar or identical to several statements http://www.bible.ca/scientology-1million-start-a-religion.htm Hubbard is reported to have made to various individuals or groups in the 1940s. Variants include:
The incident is stamped indelibly in my mind because of one statement that Ron Hubbard made. What led him to say what he did I can't recall — but in so many words Hubbard said: "I'd like to start a religion. That's where the money is!"
L. Ron Hubbard to Lloyd A. Eshbach, in 1949; as quoted by Eshbach in his autobiography Over My Shoulder: Reflections On A Science Fiction Era (1983) ISBN 1-880418-11-8 .
Y'know, we're all wasting our time writing this hack science fiction! You wanta make real money, you gotta start a religion!
As reported to Mike Jittlov by Theodore Sturgeon as a statement Hubbard made while at the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society clubhouse in the 1940s.
Writing for a penny a word is ridiculous. If a man really wanted to make a million dollars, the best way to do it would be start his own religion.
As quoted in the Los Angeles Times (27 August 1978)
Writing for a penny a word is ridiculous. If a man really wants to make a million dollars, the best way would be to start his own religion.
As quoted in the article "Scientology: Anatomy of a Frightening Cult" by Eugene H. Methvin. Reader's Digest (May 1980).
I always knew he was exceedingly anxious to hit big money — he used to say he thought the best way to do it would be to start a cult.
Sam Merwin, Editor of Thrilling Science Fiction magazine Winter of 1946-47; quoted in Bare-Faced Messiah, The True Story of L. Ron Hubbard (1987) by Russell Miller
Whenever he was talking about being hard up he often used to say that he thought the easiest way to make money would be to start a religion.
Neison Himmel, briefly a roommate of Hubbard in Pasadena during the fall of 1945, in a 1986 interview, quoted in Bare-Faced Messiah, The True Story of L. Ron Hubbard (1987) by Russell Miller.

William Booth photo

“The chief danger of the 20th century will be religion without the Holy Spirit, Christianity without Christ, forgiveness without repentance, salvation without regeneration, politics without God, and heaven without hell.”

William Booth (1829–1912) British Methodist preacher

Variant: I consider that the chief dangers which confront the coming century will be.... religion without the Holy Ghost, Christianity without Christ, forgiveness without repentance, salvation without regeneration, politics without God and heaven without hell.

John Wooden photo

“If I were ever prosecuted for my religion, I truly hope there would be enough evidence to convict me.”

John Wooden (1910–2010) American basketball coach

Source: Wooden: A Lifetime of Observations and Reflections On and Off the Court

Anne Frank photo
Elie Wiesel photo
Sigmund Freud photo

“Immorality, no less than morality, has at all times found support in religion.”

Source: 1920s, The Future of an Illusion (1927), Ch. 7

Friedrich Nietzsche photo

“There is not enough religion in the world to destroy the world’s religions.”

Variant: There is not enough love and goodness in the world to permit giving any of it away to imaginary beings.
Source: Human, All Too Human

Karl Marx photo

“Religion is the impotence of the human mind to deal with occurrences it cannot understand.”

Karl Marx (1818–1883) German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist and revolutionary socialist
Anatoli Boukreev photo
John Ruskin photo
Stephen King photo
Eckhart Tolle photo
George Lincoln Rockwell photo

“I care not what religion, club, area or class you come from, nor what bit of colored cloth you wave as a flag. WE are ALL under deadly attack by colored hordes which outnumber us more than seven to one, led by a filthy Jewish, Communist conspiracy!”

George Lincoln Rockwell (1918–1967) American politician, founder of the American Nazi Party

White Self-Hate: Master-Stroke Of The Enemy
1962, White Self-Hate: Master-Stroke Of The Enemy

Jonathan Edwards photo
Edward Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax photo
Periyar E. V. Ramasamy photo

“It is absurd to quote religion or God or religious doctrines to render the people as lowest castes.”

Periyar E. V. Ramasamy (1879–1973) Tamil politician and social reformer

Veeramani, Collected Works of Periyar, p. 511.
Untouchability

Abraham Lincoln photo
George Orwell photo
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Friedrich Nietzsche photo
Colin Wilson photo
Jerry Coyne photo
Joseph Goebbels photo
Mikhail Bakunin photo
Louis Riel photo
Nikola Tesla photo
Sarojini Naidu photo
Karl Popper photo
John Toland photo
Paramahansa Yogananda photo
Fernando Pessoa photo

“Eat your chocolates, little girl,
Eat your chocolates!
Believe me, there's no metaphysics on earth like chocolates,
And all religions put together teach no more than the candy shop.
Eat, dirty little girl, eat!
If only I could eat chocolates with the same truth as you!
But I think and, removing the silver paper that's tinfoil,
I throw it all on the ground, as I've thrown out life.”

Fernando Pessoa (1888–1935) Portuguese poet, writer, literary critic, translator, publisher and philosopher

Come chocolates, pequena;
Come chocolates!
Olha que não há mais metafísica no mundo senão chocolates.
Olha que as religiões todas não ensinam mais que a confeitaria.
Come, pequena suja, come!
Pudesse eu comer chocolates com a mesma verdade com que comes!
Mas eu penso e, ao tirar o papel de prata, que é de folhas de estanho,
Deito tudo para o chão, como tenho deitado a vida.
Tabacaria (1928), trans. Richard Zenith

Eugene Cernan photo
Thomas Paine photo
Mikhail Bakunin photo
Robert Smith (musician) photo
C.G. Jung photo

“Among all my patients in the second half of life—that is to say, over thirty-five—there has not been one whose problem in the last resort was not that of finding a religious outlook on life. It is safe to say that every one of them fell ill because he had lost what the living religions of every age have given their followers, and none of them has been really healed who did not regain his religious outlook.”

Chap. 11 (Psychotherapists or the Clergy), p. 229 http://books.google.com/books?id=mAsPAQAAIAAJ&q=%22Among+all+my+patients+in+the+second+half+of+life+that+is+to+say+over+thirty+five+there+has+not+been+one+whose+problem+in+the+last+resort+was+not+that+of+finding+a+religious+outlook+on+life%22&pg=PA229#v=onepage
Modern Man in Search of a Soul (1933)

Rabindranath Tagore photo
Adam Weishaupt photo
Thomas Paine photo