Quotes about religion

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“In reality, all religions only pray in the Name of God. Because no one truly knows His Name.”

“It is only the vulgar people who will imagine religion to be the main enemy of science.”

“Love should be your truest religion and humanity your priority in life.”

“You can have faith without becoming religious, nor having any religion.”

“Promotion is everywhere, even when it comes on practising and choosing the best religion for yourself.”

“The foundation of irreligious criticism is: Man makes religion, religion does not make man.”

“Music is the only religion that delivers the goods. All music is good. It fulfills a social function. It's like wallpaper to your lifestyle. It defines what you are.”

“I do not think that the real reason why people accept religion has anything to do with argumentation. They accept religion on emotional grounds. One is often told that it is a very wrong thing to attack religion, because religion makes men virtuous. So I am told; I have not noticed it.”

“Nobody has ever managed to explain what it is they are longing after in religion, but it is quite clear what they are trying to escape from – this earthly vale of tears, one’s untenable existential situation.”

“If i could change one thing about the world, it'd be:
Their thinking, because nowadays their thinking has become so sick that they do not see anything other than their religion. they keep fighting and quarreling with each other in the name of religion, they all forget that there is no greater religion than humanity. I want to change their thinking so that peace and harmony prevails between them.”

“Softmindedness often invades religion. ... Softminded persons have revised the Beautitudes to read "Blessed are the pure in ignorance: for they shall see God." This has led to a widespread belief that there is a conflict between science and religion. But this is not true. There may be a conflict between softminded religionists and toughminded scientists, but not between science and religion. ... 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.”

“The opinions that are held with passion are always those for which no good ground exists; indeed the passion is the measure of the holder's lack of rational conviction. Opinions in politics and religion are almost always held passionately.”

“Just as the ancient sutras, the writings contained within this book are sacred and have come out of a state of consciousness we may call stillness. Unlike those ancient sutras, however, they don’t belong to any one religion or spiritual tradition, but are immediately accessible to the whole of humanity. There is also an added sense of urgency here. The transformation of human consciousness is no longer a luxury, so to speak, available only to a few isolated individuals, but a necessity if humankind is not to destroy itself.”

“Never have nations been civilized, except by religion.”

“Race Disconnects
Religion Separates
Politics Divides
and Wealth Classifies.”

“Science is not the latest religion and scientists are not exalted priests. We have to think of science as a powerful tool that works. Using it requires responsibility. Science gives us vaccines one moment, nuclear warheads the next. It’s up to be wise tool users.”

“[...]I should say that it is a good rule of thumb never to mention religion if you can possibly avoid it.”

“Neither Pagan nor Mahamedan nor Jew ought to be excluded from the civil rights of the Commonwealth because of his religion. -quoting John Locke's argument.”

“Religion, the dominion of the human mind;
Property, the dominion of human needs; and
Government, the dominion of human conduct,
represent the stronghold of man's enslavement
and all the horrors it entails.”

“Religion is an illusion and it derives its strength from the fact that it falls in with our instinctual desires.”

“Scriptures, n. The sacred books of our holy religion, as distinguished from the false and profane writings on which all other faiths are based.”

“The Christian religion is a very powerful and convincing mistake.”

“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.”

“For she was of that generation who, having found nothing in religion, had formed themselves through literature.”

“I believe in the religion of Islam. I believe in Allah and peace.”

“Art is the great democrat, calling forth creative genius from every sector of society, disregarding race or religion or wealth or color”

“Without discipline, Religion would be impossible”

“Bapu Gandhi said, ‘All religions are true.’ I just want to love God.”

“The religion of one age is the literary entertainment of the next.”

“Calvin:"It says here that 'religion is the opiate of the masses.'… what do you suppose that means?"
Television: "… it means that Karl Marx hadn't seen anything yet”

“I am America. I am the part you won't recognize. But get
used to me. Black, confident, cocky; my name, not yours;
my religion, not yours; my goals, my own; get used to me.”

“… religion either produces the very best people or the very worst.”

“Religion is far more of a choice than homosexuality.”

“Regardless of what I think about Islam or Wicca or any other religion, the fact is that it's a group of people. Every faith has its ceremonies. And since it's made up of people, every faith also has its assholes.”

“I’ll do this to you till there’s something to take the place of your vows—until you see the two of us together as your religion.” (Garreth)”

“What we do in every other area of our lives (other than religion), is, rather than respect somebody's beliefs, we evaluate their reasons.”

“A sense of humor, properly developed, is superior to any religion so far devised.”

“Atheism is a religion like not collecting stamps is a hobby.”

“Death is just a new beginning…at least in my religion. And extreme inebriation seriously helps. (Syn)”

“Without the support from religion--remember, we talked about it--no father, using only his own resources, would be able to bring up a child.”

“Conventionality is not morality. Self-righteousness is not religion. Espousing the former is not defending the latter.”

“All outward forms of religion are almost useless, and are the causes of endless strife…. Believe there is a great power silently working all things for good, behave yourself and never mind the rest.”

“Myth is what we call other people's religion.”

“Only fanatics — in religion as well as in politics — can find a meaning in someone else’s death.”

“Every religion is the product of the conceptual mind attempting to describe the mystery.”

“Holy solitaries' is a phrase no more consistent with the Gospel than holy adulterers. The Gospel of Christ knows no religion but social; no holiness, but social holiness.”

“It is the chief characteristic of the religion of science that it works.”

“If I were asked for a one-sentence sound
bite on religion, I would say I was against it.”

“Good people are good people; religion has nothing to do with it.”

“Most world religions denounced war as a barbaric waste of human life. We treasured the teachings of these religions so dearly that we frequently had to wage war in order to impose them on other people.”

“And there it was again. Another religion turned against itself. Another edifice constructed by the human mind, decimated by human nature.”

“Atheism is a religion like abstinence is a sex position.”

“No religion is perfect, not after man gets through with it.”

“You said their prayer - is this the religion you believe in, then?"
"I believe in them all."
Vin frowned. "None of them contradict each other?"
Sazed smiled. "Oh, often and frequently they do. But, I respect the truths behind them all.”

“Religion is a conceited effort to deny the most obvious realities.”

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

“There is only one religion, though there are a hundred versions of it.”

“They say religion is about love, but you wonder how much of it really is about fear.”

“It all depends on whatyou're talking about helping. That's the wonderful think about just about every religion on the planet - they're all so incredibly selfish.”

“The minute you get a religion you stop thinking. Believe in one thing too much and you have no room for new ideas.”

“I am a deeply religious nonbeliever. This is a somewhat new kind of religion.”

“I have no religion, but if I were to choose one, it would be that of Shariati's.”

“Tea… is a religion of the art of life.”

“I could not comprehend the justice of that law, or that religion, which upholds or recognizes the principle of slavery;”

“Soccer isn't the same as Bach or Buddhism. But it is often more deeply felt than religion, and just as much a part of the community's fabric, a repository of traditions.”

“My faith is whatever makes me feel good about being alive. If your religion doesn't make you feel good to be alive, what the hell is the point of it?”

“If he'd learned one thing while he'd been away, it was that loneliness is the most taboo subject in the world. Forget sex or politics or religion. Or even failure. Loneliness is what clears out a room.”

“Why are those who are notoriously undisciplined and unmoral also most contemptuous of religion and morality? They are trying to solace their own unhappy lives by pulling the happy down to their own abysmal depths.”

“If people but knew their own religion, how tolerant they would become, and how free from any grudge against the religion of others.”

“This was the kind of dress that changed the world. The kind of dress that started religions.”

“It is a bad sign when the people of a country stop identifying themselves with the country and start identifying with a group. A racial group. Or a religion. Or a language. Anything, as long as it isn't the whole population.”

“If I believe in anything, it is in the dark night of the soul. Awe is my religion, and mystery is its church.”

“Religion is like language or dress. We gravitate toward the practices with which we were raised. In the end, though, we are all proclaiming the same thing. That life has meaning. That we are grateful for the power that created us.”

“When a nation forgets her skill in war, when her religion becomes a mockery, when the whole nation becomes a nation of money-grabbers, then the wild tribes, the barbarians drive in… Who will our invaders be? From whence will they come?”

“Some men, under the notion of weeding out prejudice, eradicate virtue, honesty and religion.”

“I endeavored to renounce society, that I might avoid temptation. But it was a poor religion; so far as it prevailed, only tended to make me gloomy, stupid, unsociable, and useless.”

“Religion must remain an outlet for people who say to themselves, 'I am not the kind of person I want to be.' It must never sink into an assemblage of the self-satisfied.”

“Bring a vampire around, people start discovering religion.”

“One of the great tragedies of mankind is that morality has been hijacked by religion. So now people assume that religion and morality have a necessary connection. But the basis of morality is really very simple and doesn't require religion at all.”

“Lying on stained wretched sheets with the bleeding virgin,
we could plan a murder…or start a religion.”

“We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.”

“I asked them why when they persecute men, for religion or colour it was seen by the world as oppression and when they persecute women, it was dismissed as tradition.”

“To accept passively an unjust system is to cooperate with that system; thereby the oppressed become as evil as the oppressor. Non-cooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good. The oppressed must never allow the conscience of the oppressor to slumber. Religion reminds every man that he is his brother's keeper. To accept injustice”

“All people have religions. It's like we have religion receptors built into our brain cells, or something, and we'll latch onto anything that'll fill that niche for us.”

“Religion isn't the cause of wars, it's the excuse.”

“Yes, reason has been a part of organized religion, ever since two nudists took dietary advice from a talking snake.”

“Religions are founded by what mystics say when they come back;
but what the mystics say is not the same as what happened to them.”

“Here's your first problem," he said, pointing at a sentence. "'Religion is the opium of the people.' Well, I don't know about people, but I think you'll find that the opium of pirates is actual opium.”

“Religion's just a well-oiled profit-driven denial of the randomness of it all.”

“Religion is a system of wishful illusions together with a disavowal of reality, such as we find nowhere else but in a state of blissful hallucinatory confusion. Religion's eleventh commandment is "Thou shalt not question."”

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

“Religion is probably, after sex, the second oldest resource which human beings have available to them for blowing their mind.”

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

“Philosophy begins where religion ends, just as by analogy chemistry begins where alchemy runs out, and astronomy takes the place of astrology.”

“I think different religions are different doors to the same house. Sometimes I think the house exists, and sometimes I don’t. It’s the great mystery. (Steve Jobs)”

“I don't see,' I said, 'how people stand being old. Your insides all dry up. When you're young you're so self-reliant. You don't even need much religion.”

“The most elementary of good manners… at a social gathering one does not bring up the subject of personalities, sad topics or unfortunate facts, religion, or politics.”

“Atheism, a religion dedicated to its own sense of smug superiority.”

“I find the whole business of religion profoundly interesting. But it does mystify me that otherwise intelligent people take it seriously.”