We, ignorant of ourselves, Beg often our own harms, which the wise powers / Deny us for our good; so find we profit / By losing of our prayers.
— Antony and Cleopatra
Quotes About Religion
Few subjects draw verdicts this far apart. Edgar Allan Poe dismissed all religion as simply evolved out of fraud, fear, greed, imagination, and poetry, and Napoleon reduced it to an instrument of order, the thing that keeps the poor from murdering the rich. George Washington took the opposite view, urging that while performing the duties of good citizens and soldiers, people ought not to neglect the higher duties of religion.
Among believers the arguments are just as sharp. Martin Luther King Jr. attacked a dry as dust religion that praises Heaven while ignoring the social conditions that cause an earthly hell. Moliere asked why anyone would put himself in charge of Heaven's cause. Dostoyevsky renounced the higher harmony altogether when its price was the tears of one tortured child. Abraham Lincoln kept his distance from dogma, saying he could never give assent to the long, complicated statements of Christian doctrine. Tolstoy's advice is dry and practical: pray if you like, but use your judgment.
Among believers the arguments are just as sharp. Martin Luther King Jr. attacked a dry as dust religion that praises Heaven while ignoring the social conditions that cause an earthly hell. Moliere asked why anyone would put himself in charge of Heaven's cause. Dostoyevsky renounced the higher harmony altogether when its price was the tears of one tortured child. Abraham Lincoln kept his distance from dogma, saying he could never give assent to the long, complicated statements of Christian doctrine. Tolstoy's advice is dry and practical: pray if you like, but use your judgment.
I like the silent church before the service begins, better than any preaching.
— Self-Reliance and Other Essays
Every single human being should be the fulfilment of a prophecy: for every human being should be the realisation of some ideal, either in the mind of God or in the mind of man.
— De Profundis
As soon as a religion comes to dominate it has as its opponents all those who would have been its first disciples.
— Human, All Too Human
Ours is a terrible religion. The fleets of the world could swim in spacious comfort in the innocent blood it has spilt.
— On Religion
Love and religion! thought Clarissa, going back into the drawing room, tingling all over. How detestable, how detestable they are!
— Mrs. Dalloway
Men are made for happiness, and he who is completely happy has the right to say to himself, 'I am doing God's will on earth.
— The Brothers Karamazov
Mrs Joe was a very clean housekeeper, but had an exquisite art of making her clenliness more umcomfortable and unacceptable than dirt itself. Cleanliness is next to godliness, and some people do the same by their religion.
— Great Expectations
I have no idea what's awaiting me, or what will happen when this all ends. For the moment I know this: there are sick people and they need curing.
— The Plague
— Anna Karenina
— Out of My Later Years: The Scientist, Philosopher, and Man Portrayed Through His Own Words
It is possible that mankind is on the threshold of a golden age; but, if so, it will be necessary first to slay the dragon that guards the door, and this dragon is religion.
— Why I Am Not a Christian and Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects
Morality is everywhere the same for all men, therefore it comes from God; sects differ, therefore they are the work of men.
— A Pocket Philosophical Dictionary
The Bible is not my book nor Christianity my profession. I could never give assent to the long, complicated statements of Christian dogma.
— Speeches and Writings, 1832-1858
My politics is my religion, my religion is my politics.
— Selected Political Writings
Be a man!... What good is religion if it collapses under calamity? Think of what earthquakes and floods, wars and volcanoes, have done before to men! Did you think that God had exempted [us]? He is not an insurance agent.
— The War of the Worlds
All religions are based on obsolete terminology.
— Pale Fire
It is wonderful how much time good people spend fighting the devil. If they would only expend the same amount of energy loving their fellow men, the devil would die in his own tracks of ennui.
— The Story of My Life
Just when the gods had ceased to be, and the Christ had not yet come, there was a unique moment in history, between Cicero and Marcus Aurelius, when man stood alone.
— The Letters, 1830-1880
Hope is a passion for the possible.
— Fear and Trembling
A truth that's told with bad intent / Beats all the lies you can invent.
— Auguries of Innocence
No religion except ours has taught that man is born in sin none of the philosophical sects has admitted it none therefore has spoken the truth
— Pensées
Where questions of religion are concerned, people are guilty of every possible sort of dishonesty and intellectual misdemeanor.
— The Future of an Illusion
If Jesus came back and saw what was being done in his name, he'd never stop throwing up.
— Hannah and Her Sisters