“The call to religion is not a call to be better than your fellows, but to be better than yourself.”
Henry Ward Beecher (1813–1887) American clergyman and activist
Source: Life Thoughts (1858), p. 18
Context: I do not think idolatry the worst of sins. Cruelty is the worst of sins. It is far better to worship a false God, than to injure your neighbor—far better to bow before a monstrosity of stone, than to enslave your fellow-men.
“The call to religion is not a call to be better than your fellows, but to be better than yourself.”
Henry Ward Beecher (1813–1887) American clergyman and activist
Source: Life Thoughts (1858), p. 18
“The sleep of a wise man is far better than the worship of an ignorant one during the night.”
Musa al-Kadhim (745–799) Seventh of the Twelve Imams and regarded by Sunnis as a renowned scholar
Ibn Shu’ba al-Harrani, Tuhaf al-'Uqul, p. 419.
Regarding Knowledge & Wisdom, Religious
“You are better than your god. You are better than your religion.”
Matt Dillahunty (1969) American activist
Episode 578: "Still More Scamlets" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDcLAeTm5AY, Channel Austin (November 9, 2008) <br class="br">The Atheist Experience <br class="br">Context: You are better than your god. You are better than your religion. So am I, so is damn near everybody on the planet. I wish you people would wake up and see this. Stop apologizing for this! [holds up The Bible] It's not the Good Book, there's nothing good about it. All it does is poison minds. All it does is make you sacrifice your humanity— the only thing that you have that is of any value— in order to sit around in deference to your gods.
James Weldon Johnson (1871–1938) writer and activist
O Black and Unknown Bards, st. 6.
Fifty Years and Other Poems (1917)
Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer
Answer to Lyman Abbott (unfinished), responding to Abbott, Lyman. "Flaws in Ingersollism." The North American Review 150, no. 401 (1890): 446-457.
“Women have a much better time than men in this world; there are far more things forbidden to them.”
Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet
“Better to have one woman on your side than ten men.”
al'Lan Mandragoran
Variant: There is an old saying here in the Borderlands: "Better to have one woman on your side than ten men."
Source: The Great Hunt (15 November 1990)
Muhammad (570–632) Arabian religious leader and the founder of Islam
Narrated in Mosnad Ahmad, #22978
Sunni Hadith
“Stand before your god, bow before your king, kneel before your man.”
Terry Pratchett book Lords and Ladies
Source: Lords and Ladies