Joseph F. Smith (1838–1918) President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Journal of Discourses 22:44 (February 6, 1881)
268
Leaves of Morya’s Garden: Book One (The Call) (1924)
Joseph F. Smith (1838–1918) President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Journal of Discourses 22:44 (February 6, 1881)
Nigel Lawson (1932) British Conservative politician and journalist
The View from No. 11: Memoirs of a Tory Radical (London: Bantam, 1992), p. 613.
Brennan Manning (1934–2013) writer, American Roman Catholic priest and United States Marine
“Religions are not true or false, but better or worse.”
George Santayana (1863–1952) 20th-century Spanish-American philosopher associated with Pragmatism
This statement is presented in quotes in The Philosophy of Religion and Advaita Vedanta (2008) by Arvind Sharma, p. 216, as a "Santayanan point", but earlier publications by the same author, such as in A Primal Perspective on the Philosophy of Religion (2006), p. 161, state it to be a stance of Santayana without actually indicating or in any ways implying that it is a direct quotation.
Disputed
John Tyndall (1820–1893) British scientist
New Fragments (1892)
Context: Christ found the religions of the world oppressed almost to suffocation by the load of formulas piled upon them by the priesthood. He removed the load, and rendered respiration free. He cared little for forms and ceremonies, which had ceased to be the raiment of man's spiritual life. To that life he looked, and it he sought to restore.<!--pp. 11-12
Samuel Richardson book The History of Sir Charles Grandison
Vol. 6, letter 45.
Sir Charles Grandison (1753–1754)
F. E. Pargiter (1852–1927) British civil servant and orientalist
Ancient Indian Historical Tradition (1962)
“Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful.”
Seneca the Younger (-4–65 BC) Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, and dramatist
As quoted in What Great Men Think About Religion (1945) by Ira D. Cardiff, p. 342. No original source for this has been found in the works of Seneca, or published translations. It is likely that the quote originates with Edward Gibbon who wrote:<blockquote>The various modes of worship which prevailed in the Roman world were all considered by the people as equally true; by the philosopher as equally false; and by the magistrate as equally useful. — Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. I http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/890, Ch. II</blockquote> Elbert Hubbard would claim in 1904 ( Little Journeys: To the homes of great philosophers: Seneca http://www.online-literature.com/elbert-hubbard/journeys-vol-eight/2/) that Gibbon was "making a free translation from Seneca". <br class="br">Disputed
Apollonius of Rhodes book Argonautica
Source: Argonautica (3rd century BC), Book III. Jason and Medea, Lines 822–824