Motivational Quotes

Religion

The opposite of the religious fanatic is not the fanatical atheist but the gentle cynic who cares not whether there is a god or not.

- Eric Hoffer

Best Quotes about Religion

I think that the leaf of a tree, the meanest insect on which we trample, are in themselves arguments more conclusive than any which can be adduced that some vast intellect animates Infinity.

Shelley, Percy Bysshe

The idea of the sacred is quite simply one of the most conservative notions in any culture, because it seeks to turn other ideas -- uncertainty, progress, change -- into crimes.

Rushdie, Salman

The secret of a good sermon is to have a good beginning and a good ending, then having the two as close together as possible.

George Burns

With or without religion, 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

I cannot see how a man of any large degree of humorous perception can ever be religious -- except he purposely shut the eyes of his mind and keep them shut by force.

Twain, Mark

A maker of idols is never an idolater.

Proverb, Chinese

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

Religion is love; in no case is it logic.

Webb, Beatrice Potter

Religion enables us to ignore nothingness and get on with the jobs of life.

Updike, John

10.

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.

11.

And lips say God be pitiful, who never said, God be praised.

Browning, Elizabeth Barrett

12.

Religion, oh, just another of those numerous failures resulting from an attempt to popularize art.

Pound, Ezra

13.

The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.

Oscar Wilde

14.

Religion. A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable.

Bierce, Ambrose

15.

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

16.

Never confuse the faith with the supposedly faithful.

Randy K. Milholland

17.

I won't take my religion from any man who never works except with his mouth.

Carl Sandburg

18.

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.

19.

The opposite of the religious fanatic is not the fanatical atheist but the gentle cynic who cares not whether there is a god or not.

Eric Hoffer

20.

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

21.

It is a fine thing to establish one's own religion in one's heart, not to be dependent on tradition and second-hand ideals. Life will seem to you, later, not a lesser, but a greater thing.

D. H. Lawrence

22.

Religion is a temper, not a pursuit.

Martineau, Harriet

23.

Those who seek consolation in existing churches often pay for their peace of mind with a tacit agreement to ignore a great deal of what is known about the way the world works.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

24.

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

25.

Angels dancing on the head of a pin dissolve into nothingness at the bedside of a dying child.

Waiter Rant

26.

I do benefits for all religions -- I'd hate to blow the hereafter on a technicality.

Hope, Bob

27.

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

28.

Everybody likes to go their own way--to choose their own time and manner of devotion.

Jane Austen

29.

A good test of a man's religion is its vitality.

30.

A myth is a religion in which no one any longer believes.

James Feibleman

31.

For centuries, theologians have been explaining the unknowable in terms of the-not-worth-knowing.

H. L. Mencken

32.

Say nothing of my religion. It is known to God and myself alone. Its evidence before the world is to be sought in my life: if it has been honest and dutiful to society the religion which has regulated it cannot be a bad one.

Thomas Jefferson

33.

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

34.

Religions, which condemn the pleasures of sense, drive men to seek the pleasures of power. Throughout history power has been the vice of the ascetic.

Russell, Bertrand

35.

When the soul drifts uncertainly between life and the dream, between the mind's disorder and the return to cool reflection, it is in religious thought that we should seek consolation.

Nerval, Gerard De

36.

Religion is like holding on to a rock in the middle of a raging river; faith is learning how to swim.

37.

I am determined that my children shall be brought up in their father's religion, if they can find out what it is.

Charles Lamb

38.

Oh senseless man, who cannot possibly make a worm, and yet will make Gods by dozens.

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

39.

Don't try to tear down other people's religion about their ears, Build up your own perfect structure of truth, and invite your listeners to enter in and enjoy it's glories.

Young, Brigham

40.

All the sweetness of religion is conveyed to the world by the hands of story-tellers and image-makers. Without their fictions the truths of religion would for the multitude be neither intelligible nor even apprehensible; and the prophets would prophesy and the teachers teach in vain.

Shaw, George Bernard

41.

My religion? Well, my dear, I am a Millionaire. That is my religion.

Shaw, George Bernard

42.

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.

43.

Men despise religion. They hate it and are afraid it may be true.

Pascal, Blaise

44.

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

45.

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

Hubbard, Elbert

46.

Rational arguments don't usually work on religious people. Otherwise, there wouldn't be religious people.

Doris Egan

47.

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

Marlowe, Christopher

48.

For a truly religious man nothing is tragic.