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Quotes about religion

498 quotes from 232 people

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I have read descriptions of Paradise that would make any sensible person stop wanting to go there.
Montesquieu1689–1755Lettres Persanes (Persian Letters, 1721), No. 125. (Usbek writing to Rhedi)
- Comedy
The more I study religions the more I am convinced that man never worshipped anything but himself.
Richard Francis Burton1821–1890The Book of The Thousand Nights And A Night (1885) Terminal Essay: Social Conditions, fn. 13.
- Anti-Religion
Any religion or philosophy which is not based on a respect for life is not a true religion or philosophy.
Albert Schweitzer1875–1965Letter to a Japanese Animal Welfare Society (1961)
- Philosophy
Human life began in flight and fear. Religion rose from rituals of propitiation, spells to lull the punishing elements.
Camille Pagliaborn 1947Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson (1990), p. 1
- Fear
Well, speaking as a Christian, I would like to say that I find the Apostle Paul appealing and the Apostle Peale appalling.
Adlai Stevenson II1900–1965Remarks to a Baptist convention in Texas during the 1952 presidential campaign
- Christianity
- Clever Jabs
Jesus wept; Voltaire smiled. Of that divine tear and that human smile is composed the sweetness of the present civilization.
Victor Hugo1802–1885Speech, “Le centenaire de Voltaire”, on the 100th anniversary of the death of Voltaire, Théâtre de la Gaîté, Paris (30 May 1878); published in Actes et paroles—Depuis l’exil (1878)
- Christianity
One of the things that is wrong with religion is that it teaches us to be satisfied with answers which are not really answers at all.
Richard Dawkinsborn 1941The Root of All Evil? (2006)
- Anti-Religion
He comes into the world God knows how, walks on the water, gets out of his grave and goes up off the Hill of Howth. What drivel is this?
James Joyce1882–1941Stephen Hero (1944)
- Anti-Religion
- Christianity
The secular state is the guarantee of religious pluralism. This apparent paradox, again, is the simplest and most elegant of political truths.
Christopher Hitchens1949–2011“Ireland” (1998).
- Politics
No one can read the Gospels without feeling the actual presence of Jesus. His personality pulsates in every word. No myth is filled with such life.
Albert Einstein1879–1955Interview with George Sylvester Viereck (1929), as reported in Denis Brian, Einstein: A Life (1996)
- Christianity
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.
Mikhail Bakunin1814–1876Man, Society, and Freedom (1871)
- Anti-God
- Anti-Religion
Disturbances in society are never more fearful than when those who are stirring up the trouble can use the pretext of religion to mask their true designs.
Denis Diderot1713–1784Observations on the Drawing Up of Laws (1774)
The most dangerous madmen are those created by religion, and … people whose aim is to disrupt society always know how to make good use of them on occasion.
Denis Diderot1713–1784Conversations with a Christian Lady (1774)
- Anti-Religion
The religious life, and all the agony that goes with it, is just something God sics on people who have the gall to accuse Him of having created an ugly world.
J. D. Salinger1919–2010Zooey (1957)
- God
There is one very serious defect to my mind in Christ’s moral character, and that is that He believed in hell. I do not myself feel that any person who is really profoundly humane can believe in everlasting punishment.
Bertrand Russell1872–1970Why I Am Not a Christian (1927), “The Moral Problem”
- Anti-Religion
- Christianity