Quotes about religion

"Of all possible sexual perversions, religion is the only one to have ever been scientifically systematized."

Aragon, Louis on religion   

"The true meaning of religion is thus, not simply morality, but morality touched by emotion."

Arnold, Matthew on religion   

"The first revolt is against the supreme tyranny of theology, of the phantom of God. As long as we have a master in heaven, we will be slaves on earth."

Bakunin, Mikhail on religion
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"Religion. A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable."

Bierce, Ambrose on religion
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"And lips say God be pitiful, who never said, God be praised."

Browning, Elizabeth Barrett on religion   

"Nothing is so fatal to religion as indifference which is, at least, half infidelity."

Burke, Edmund on religion
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"I am always most religious upon a sunshiny day..."

Byron, Lord on religion   

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"If religion is only human, and its form is man's form, it follows that everything in religion is true."

Chartier, Emile-Auguste on religion   

"A cosmic philosophy is not constructed to fit a man; a cosmic philosophy is constructed to fit a cosmos. A man can no more possess a private religion than he can possess a private sun and moon."

Chesterton, Gilbert K. on religion   

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"A religion, that is, a true religion, must consist of ideas and facts both; not of ideas alone without facts, for then it would be mere Philosophy; -- nor of facts alone without ideas, of which those facts are symbols, or out of which they arise, or upon which they are grounded: for then it would be mere History."

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor on religion   

"Religion! what treasure untold resides in that heavenly word!"

Cowper, William on religion   

"Man is made to adore and to obey: but if you will not command him, if you give him nothing to worship, he will fashion his own divinities, and find a chieftain in his own passions."

Disraeli, Benjamin on religion
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"My religion consists of a humble admiration of the unlimitable superior who reveals Himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble minds. That deeply emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God."

Einstein, Albert on religion
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"The religion that is afraid of science dishonors God and commits suicide."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on religion
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"Religion is the dream of the human mind. But even in dreams we do not find ourselves in emptiness or in heaven, but on earth, in the realm of reality; we only see real things in the entrancing splendor of imagination and caprice, instead of in the simple daylight of reality and necessity."

Feuerbach, Ludwig on religion   

"Our knowledge of the historical worth of certain religious doctrines increases our respect for them, but does not invalidate our proposal that they should cease to be put forward as the reasons for the precepts of civilization. On the contrary! Those historical residues have helped us to view religious teachings, as it were, as neurotic relics, and we may now argue that the time has probably come, as it does in an analytic treatment, for replacing the effects of repression by the results of the rational operation of the intellect."

Freud, Sigmund on religion   

"Culture's essential service to a religion is to destroy intellectual idolatry, the recurrent tendency in religion to replace the object of its worship with its present understanding and forms of approach to that object."

Frye, Northrop on religion   

"Religion is doing; a man does not merely think his religion or feel it, he lives his religion as much as he is able, otherwise it is not religion but fantasy or philosophy."

Gurdjieff, George on religion
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"Religion I have disposed of all my property to my family. There is one thing more I wish I could give to them, and that is the Christian religion. If they had that and I had not given them one cent, they would be rich. If they have not that, and I had given them the world, they would be poor."

Henry, Patrick on religion   

"All religions have based morality on obedience, that is to say, on voluntary slavery. That is why they have always been more pernicious than any political organization. For the latter makes use of violence, the former -- of the corruption of the will."

Herzen, Alexander on religion   

"It's incongruous that the older we get, the more likely we are to turn in the direction of religion. Less vivid and intense ourselves, closer to the grave, we begin to conceive of ourselves as immortal."

Hoagland, Edward on religion   

"For it is with the mysteries of our religion, as with wholesome pills for the sick, which swallowed whole, have the virtue to cure; but chewed, are for the most part cast up again without effect."

Hobbes, Thomas on religion   

"To know a person's religion we need not listen to his profession of faith but must find his brand of intolerance."

Hoffer, Eric on religion
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"I do benefits for all religions -- I'd hate to blow the hereafter on a technicality."

Hope, Bob on religion   

"Give us a religion that will help us to live -- we can die without assistance."

Hubbard, Elbert on religion   

"We are on the side of religion as opposed to religions, and we are among those who believe in the wretched inadequacy of sermons and the sublimity of prayer."

Hugo, Victor on religion   

"Toleration is the best religion."

Hugo, Victor on religion   

"You never see animals going through the absurd and often horrible fooleries of magic and religion. Dogs do not ritually urinate in the hope of persuading heaven to do the same and send down rain. Asses do not bray a liturgy to cloudless skies. Nor do cats attempt, by abstinence from cat's meat, to wheedle the feline spirits into benevolence. Only man behaves with such gratuitous folly. It is the price he has to pay for being intelligent but not, as yet, quite intelligent enough."

Huxley, Aldous on religion
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"To become a popular religion, it is only necessary for a superstition to enslave a philosophy."

Inge, Dean William R. on religion
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"There must be something solemn, serious, and tender about any attitude which we denominate religious. If glad, it must not grin or snicker; if sad, it must not scream or curse."

James, William on religion   

"When a culture feels that its end has come, it sends for a priest."

Kraus, Karl on religion   

"There is nothing more innately human than the tendency to transmute what has become customary into what has been divinely ordained."

Lafollette, Suzanne on religion   

"A man has no religion who has not slowly and painfully gathered one together, adding to it, shaping it; and one's religion is never complete and final, it seems, but must always be undergoing modification."

Lawrence, D. H. on religion   

"Talk to me about the truth of religion and I'll listen gladly. Talk to me about the duty of religion and I'll listen submissively. But don't come talking to me about the consolations of religion or I shall suspect that you don't understand."

Lewis, C. S. on religion
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"A church is disaffected when it is persecuted, quiet when it is tolerated, and actively loyal when it is favored and cherished."

Macaulay, Thomas B. on religion   

"Wherever an altar is found, there civilization exists."

Maistre, Joseph De on religion   

"I count religion but a childish toy, and hold there is no sin but innocence."

Marlowe, Christopher on religion   

"But is it not the fact that religion emanates from the nature, from the moral state of the individual? Is it not therefore true that unless the nature be completely exercised, the moral state harmonized, the religion cannot be healthy?"

Martineau, Harriet on religion   

"Religion is a temper, not a pursuit."

Martineau, Harriet on religion   

"Religion is the opium of the masses."

Marx, Karl on religion
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