“All religion, my friend, is simply evolved out of chicanery, fear, greed, imagination and poetry!”

Sometimes quoted as "All religion, my friend, is simply evolved out of fraud, fear, greed, imagination and poetry"
According to John A. Joyce's much-criticized biography Edgar Allen Poe (1901), this was said by Poe to William Barton.
Disputed
Source: Google Books link https://books.google.com/books?id=_cdEAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=John+Alexander+Joyce+poe&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CBwQ6AEwAGoVChMIsuLtsoXUyAIVVSqICh2cqAI_#v=onepage&q=%22chicanery%2C%20fear%22&f=false

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Sept. 29, 2023. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "All religion, my friend, is simply evolved out of chicanery, fear, greed, imagination and poetry!" by Edgar Allan Poe?
Edgar Allan Poe photo
Edgar Allan Poe 126
American author, poet, editor and literary critic 1809–1849

Related quotes

“Any form of orthodoxy is just not part of a poet's province … A poet must be able to claim … freedom to follow the vision of poetry, the imaginative vision of poetry … And in any case, poetry is religion, religion is poetry.”

R.S. Thomas (1913–2000) Welsh poet

R. S. Thomas : Priest and Poet, BBC TV (2 April 1972)
Context: Any form of orthodoxy is just not part of a poet's province … A poet must be able to claim … freedom to follow the vision of poetry, the imaginative vision of poetry … And in any case, poetry is religion, religion is poetry. The message of the New Testament is poetry. Christ was a poet, the New Testament is metaphor, the Resurrection is a metaphor; and I feel perfectly within my rights in approaching my whole vocation as priest and preacher as one who is to present poetry; and when I preach poetry I am preaching Christianity, and when one discusses Christianity one is discussing poetry in its imaginative aspects. … My work as a poet has to deal with the presentation of imaginative truth.

Carlos Ruiz Zafón photo
Muhammad Ali photo

“Over the years my religion has changed and my spirituality has evolved.”

Source: The Soul of a Butterfly (2004), p. xvi
Context: Over the years my religion has changed and my spirituality has evolved. Religion and spirituality are very different, but people often confuse the two. Some things cannot be taught, but they can be awakened in the heart. Spirituality is recognizing the divine light that is within us all. It doesn't belong to any particular religion; it belongs to everyone.

Kurt Vonnegut photo

“People who find those lessons irrelevant in the twentieth century are simply using science as an excuse for greed and harshness. Science has nothing to do with it, friends.”

Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) American writer

Bennington College address (1970)
Context: A great swindle of our time is the assumption that science has made religion obsolete. All science has damaged is the story of Adam and Eve and the story of Jonah and the Whale. Everything else holds up pretty well, particularly lessons about fairness and gentleness. People who find those lessons irrelevant in the twentieth century are simply using science as an excuse for greed and harshness. Science has nothing to do with it, friends.

John Lennon photo

“Imagine no possessions,
I wonder if you can;
No need for greed or hunger –
A brotherhood of man;
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world…”

John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter

You may say I'm a dreamer,
But I'm not the only one;
I hope some day you will join us,
And the world will live as one.
"Imagine" (song)
Lyrics, Imagine (1971 album)

“The strongest emotions in the marketplace are greed and fear.”

George Goodman (1930–2014) American author and economics commentator

Source: The Money Game (1968), Chapter 7, Identity And Anxiety, p. 79

Henry David Thoreau photo

“The most I can do for my friend is simply to be his friend.”

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist
Robert T. Kiyosaki photo
Gore Vidal photo

Related topics