It is difficult to discern a serious threat to religious liberty from a room of silent, thoughtful schoolchildren.
—Sandra Day O’Connor (b.1930) American Jurist
The Three in One, the One in Three? Not so! To my own Gods I go. It may be they shall give me greater ease than your cold Christ and tangled Trinities.
—Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) British Children’s Books Writer, Short story, Novelist, Poet, Journalist
Religion, in its purity, is not so much a pursuit as a temper; or rather it is a temper, leading to the pursuit of all that is high and holy. Its foundation is faith; its action, works; its temper, holiness; its aim, obedience to God in improvement of self and benevolence to men.
—Tryon Edwards (1809–94) American Theologian, Author
It is a good and gentle religion, but inconvenient.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
Choose a subject equal to your abilities; think carefully what your shoulders may refuse and what they are capable of bearing.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus) (65–8 BCE) Roman Poet
All religions die of one disease, that of being found out.
—John Morley, 1st Viscount Morley of Blackburn (1838–1923) British Political Leader, Writer, Editor, Journalist
Religion is what keeps the poor man from murdering the rich.
—Napoleon I (1769–1821) Emperor of France
The loss of popular respect for religion is the dry rot of social institutions. The idea of God as the Creator and Father of all mankind is in the moral world, what gravitation is in the natural; it holds all together and causes them to revolve around a common center. Take this away, and men drop apart; there is no such thing as collective humanity, but only separate molecules, with no more cohesion than so many grains of sand.
—Henry Martyn Field
The dimension of depth in the consciousness of religion creates the tension between what is and what ought to be. It bends the bow from which every arrow of moral action flies.
—Reinhold Niebuhr (1892–1971) American Christian Theologian
Is discord going to show itself while we are still fighting, is the Jew once again worth less than another? Oh, it is sad, very sad, that once more, for the umpteenth time, the old truth is confirmed: What one Christian does is his own responsibility, what one Jew does is thrown back at all Jews.”
—Anne Frank (1929–45) Holocaust Victim
We know, and, what is better, we feel inwardly, that religion is the basis of civil society, and the source of all good and of all comfort.
—Edmund Burke (1729–97) British Philosopher, Statesman
Let none turn over books, or roam the stars in quest of God, who sees him not in man.
—Johann Kaspar Lavater (1741–1801) Swiss Theologian, Poet
Those who marry God can become domesticated too—it’s just as hum-drum a marriage as all the others. The word Love means a formal touch of the lips as in the ceremony of the Mass, and Ave Maria like dearest is a phrase to open a letter. This marriage like the world’s marriages was held together by habits and tastes shared in common between God and themselves—it was God’s taste to be worshipped and their taste to worship, but only at stated hours like a suburban embrace on a Saturday night.
—Graham Greene (1904–91) British Novelist, Playwright, Short Story Writer
Measure not men by Sundays, without regarding what they do all the week after.
—Thomas Fuller (1608–61) English Cleric, Historian
The writers against religion, while they oppose every system, are wisely careful never to set up any of their own.
—Edmund Burke (1729–97) British Philosopher, Statesman
So when the crisis is upon you, remember that God, like a trainer of wrestlers, has matched you with a tough and stalwart antagonist-that you may prove a victor at the Great Games. Yet without toil or sweat this may not be.
—Epictetus (55–135) Ancient Greek Philosopher
Many have quarreled about religion that never practiced it
—Benjamin Franklin (1706–90) American Political Leader, Inventor, Diplomat
Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.
—Steven Weinberg (1933–2021) American Physicist
Religion is the opium of the masses.
—Karl Marx (1818–1883) German Philosopher, Economist
Our business is not only with eternity but with time, to build up on earth the kingdom of God, to enable man to live worthily and not merely to die in hope.
—John Buchan, 1st Baron Tweedsmuir (1875–1940) Scottish Novelist, Politician, Diplomat
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.
—Victor Hugo (1802–85) French Novelist
There is no heresy or no philosophy which is so abhorrent to the church as a human being.
—James Joyce (1882–1941) Irish Novelist, Poet
All…religions show the same disparity between belief and practice, and each is safe till it tries to exclude the rest. Test each sect by its best or its worst as you will, by its high-water mark of virtue or its low-water mark of vice. But falsehood begins when you measure the ebb of any other religion against the flood-tide of your own. There is a noble and a base side to every history.
—Thomas Wentworth Higginson (1823–1911) American Social Reformer, Clergyman
The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion. The religion which based on experience, which refuses dogmatic. If there’s any religion that would cope the scientific needs it will be Buddhism….
—Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born Physicist
Which of the religions of the world gives to its followers the greatest happiness? While it lasts, the religion of worshiping oneself is best
—C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) Irish-born British Academic, Author, Literary Scholar
We had the sky up there, and we used to lay on our backs and look up at them, and discuss whether they was made or just happened.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
It is, I think, an error to believe that there is any need of religion to make life seem worth living.
—C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) Irish-born British Academic, Author, Literary Scholar
The task and triumph of religion is to make men and nations true and just and upright in all their dealings, and to bring all law as well as all conduct into subjection and conformity to the law of God.
—Henry van Dyke Jr. (1852–1933) American Author, Educator, Clergyman
One should not stand at the foot of a sick person’s bed, because that place is reserved for the guardian angel.
—Hebrew Proverb
People who want to share their religious views with you almost never want you to share yours with them.
—Dave Barry (b.1947) American Humorist, Columnist
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