Religious quotes
7.1K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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"From the smallest necessity to the highest religious abstraction, from the wheel to the skyscraper, everything we are and everything we have comes from one attribute of man - the function of his reasoning mind."
"Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear."
"Notorious sinners didn’t kill Jesus. Religious people did."
"God's a funky little dude because everyone's looking for Him and no one can find Him."
"I was for two years a pupil at the Model School in Fort street which was then conducted upon the Irish national system, and if any special religious instruction was given in connection with that system, I do not recollect it."
"Becoming a Christian is the work of a moment; being a Christian is the work of a lifetime."
"A man who is convinced of the truth of his religion is indeed never tolerant. At the least, he is to feel pity for the adherent of another religion but usually it does not stop there. The faithful adherent of a religion will try first of all to convince those that believe in another religion and usually he goes on to hatred if he is not successful. However, hatred then leads to persecution when the might of the majority is behind it."
"Sound morals, religious liberty, and a just sense of religious responsibility are essentially connected with all true and lasting happiness."
"God was invented to explain mystery. God is always invented to explain those things that you do not understand."
"Any revelation from God's Word that does not lead us to an encounter with God only serves to make us more religious. The Church cannot afford 'form without power,' for it creates Christians without purpose."
"An enforced uniformity of religion throughout a nation or civil state, confounds the civil and religious, denies the principles of Christianity and civility, and that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh."
"I gave up Christianity at about 14. Came back to it when getting on for 30. Not an emotional conversion; almost purely philosophical. I didn't want to. I'm not in the least a religious type. I want to be let alone, to feel I'm my own master; but since the facts seemed to be just the opposite, I had to give in."
"In regards to this great Book [the Bible], I have but to say it is the best gift God has given to man. All the good the Savior gave to the world was communicated through this Book. But for it we could not know right from wrong. All things most desirable for man's welfare, here and hereafter, are found portrayed in it."
"The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg."
"Nothing better protects a human being against the stupidity of prejudice, racism, religious or political sectarianism, and exclusivist nationalism than this truth that invariably appears in great literature: that men and women of all nations and places are essentially equal, and only injustice sows among them discrimination, fear, and exploitation."
"But certainly in Uganda, Mozambique and South Africa, people don't really talk about sex and certainly religious leaders - some of them - up to now have been very unwilling to accept, for instance, the promotion of condom use"
"The most heinous and the most cruel crimes of which history has record have been committed under the cover of religion or equally noble motives."
"What has been the effect of [religious] coercion? To make one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites. To support roguery and error all over the earth."
"The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as his father, in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter."
"Faith: not wanting to know what is true."
