“It is not religion but revolution which is the opium of the people.”
Source: Gravity and Grace (1947), p. 159 (1972 edition)
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Simone Weil193
French philosopher, Christian mystic, and social activist 1909–1943Related quotes
Gideon Defoe (1975) British writer
Source: The Pirates! In an Adventure with Communists
“Religion is not merely the opium of the masses, it's the cyanide.”
Tom Robbins Skinny Legs and All
Skinny Legs and All (1990)
“If religion was the opium of the masses, then communism was the methamphetamine of the masses.”
Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology
Biblical Series III: God and the Hierarchy of Authority https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_GPAl_q2QQ <br class="br">Biblical Lectures
I. F. Stone (1907–1989) American investigative journalist and author
I.F. Stone's Weekly (1963-01-21)
Karl Marx (1818–1883) German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist and revolutionary socialist
Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right, Introduction..., p. 1 (1843).
Context: Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.
The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.
Criticism has plucked the imaginary flowers on the chain not in order that man shall continue to bear that chain without fantasy or consolation, but so that he shall throw off the chain and pluck the living flower.
Stanley Baldwin (1867–1947) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
Speech to the Empire Rally of Youth at the Royal Albert Hall (18 May 1937), quoted in Service of Our Lives (1937), p. 165.
1937