Religion Quotes

• Morality is doing what is right, no matter what you are told. Religion is doing what you are told, no matter what is right.

  H. L. Mencken

  Motivational, Atheism, Matter

  93 Copy quote

• One's religion is whatever he is most interested in.

  James M. Barrie

  Success

  The Twelve-Pound Look and Other Plays (1921) p. 28

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Religion is like a pair of shoes.....Find one that fits for you, but don't make me wear your shoes.

  George Carlin

  Inspirational, Funny, Life

  47 Copy quote

• This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness.

  Dalai Lama

  Inspirational, Uplifting, Spiritual

  "The Dalai Lama, A Policy of Kindness: An Anthology by and about the Dalai Lama" edited by Sidney Piburn, (p.52), 1990.

  267 Copy quote

  Show source

• Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.

  Karl Marx

  Religious, Atheist, Heart

  Karl Marx, Joseph O'Malley (1977). “Critique of Hegel's 'Philosophy Of Right'”, p.131, CUP Archive

  279 Copy quote

  Show source

• Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company.

  Mark Twain

  Funny, Sarcastic, Witty

  Mark Twain (2014). “Mark Twain on Common Sense: Timeless Advice and Words of Wisdom from America's Most-Revered Humorist”, p.40, Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.

  54 Copy quote

  Show source

• When the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said 'Let us pray.' We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land.

  Desmond Tutu

  Bible, Prayer, Eye

  266 Copy quote

• I love you when you bow in your mosque, kneel in your temple, pray in your church. For you and I are sons of one religion, and it is the spirit.

  Khalil Gibran

  Love, Son, Church

  85 Copy quote

• 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

  God, Religious, Atheist

  "Behaving Badly? Stop Using Religion as an Excuse!" by Roy Speckhardt, www.huffingtonpost.com. April 2, 2014.

  2116 Copy quote

  Show source
• 

  He died not for men, but for each man. If each man had been the only man made, He would have done no less.

  C. S. Lewis

  Men, Done, Made

  C. S. Lewis (2003). “A Mind Awake: An Anthology of C. S. Lewis”, p.93, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  53 Copy quote

  Show source
• 

  The Christian does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because He loves us.

  C. S. Lewis

  God, Christian, Thinking

  C. S. Lewis (2012). “The Complete C. S. Lewis Signature Classics”, p.64, HarperCollins UK

  146 Copy quote

  Show source

• Since no one really knows anything about God, those who think they do are just troublemakers.

  Rabia Basri

  Atheist, Thinking, Atheism

  245 Copy quote

• Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful.

  Seneca the Younger

  Wise, Religious, Atheist

  54 Copy quote

• Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.

  Blaise Pascal

  Inspirational, Sad, Religious

  Pensees no. 894 (1670 ed.)

  98 Copy quote

  Show source

• We have enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.

  Jonathan Swift

  Love, Religious, Hate

  'Thoughts on Various Subjects' (1706)

  69 Copy quote

  Show source

• I do understand what love is, and that is one of the reasons I can never again be a Christian. Love is not self denial. Love is not blood and suffering. Love is not murdering your son to appease your own vanity. Love is not hatred or wrath, consigning billions of people to eternal torture because they have offended your ego or disobeyed your rules. Love is not obedience, conformity, or submission. It is a counterfeit love that is contingent upon authority, punishment, or reward. True love is respect and admiration, compassion and kindness, freely given by a healthy, unafraid human being.

  Dan Barker

  Love, God, Christian

  Dan Barker (2009). “Godless: How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of America's Leading Atheists”, p.89, Ulysses Press

  63 Copy quote

  Show source
• 

  I would rather have a mind opened by wonder than one closed by belief.

  Gerry Spence

  Life, Faith, Religious

  "How to Argue and Win Every Time". Book by Gerry Spence, 1995.

  69 Copy quote

  Show source

• The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.

  Richard Dawkins

  God, Religious, Atheist

  Richard Dawkins (2008). “The God Delusion”, p.51, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  278 Copy quote

  Show source

• In its more authoritarian forms, religion punishes questioning and rewards gullibility. Faith is not a function of stupidity, but a frequent cause of it.

  Wendy Kaminer

  Stupidity, Rewards, Causes

  5 Copy quote

• The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Life, Religious, Atheist

  George Bernard Shaw (1993). “The Complete Prefaces: 1914-1929”, Viking Adult

  81 Copy quote

  Show source

• For good people to do evil things, it takes religion.

  Steven Weinberg

  Religious, Atheist, If There Is A God

  24 Copy quote

• Among politicians the esteem of religion is profitable; the principles of it are troublesome.

  Benjamin Whichcote

  Political, Principles, Politics

  12 Copy quote

• Science can destroy religion by ignoring it as well as by disproving its tenets. No one ever demonstrated, so far as I am aware, the nonexistence of Zeus or Thor, but they have few followers now.

  Arthur C. Clarke

  Religious, Atheism, Followers

  Arthur C. Clarke (2012). “Childhood's End”, p.14, Hachette UK

  15 Copy quote

  Show source

• Those who live by mystery & charlatanerie, fearing you would render them useless by simplifying the Christian philosophy - the most sublime and benevolent, but most perverted system that ever shone on man - endeavored to crush your well-earned & well-deserved fame.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Atheist, Men, Insightful

  Letter to Dr. Joseph Priestley, March 21, 1801.

  98 Copy quote

  Show source

• What is it the Bible teaches us? - raping, cruelty, and murder. What is it the New Testament teaches us? - to believe that the Almighty committed debauchery with a woman engaged to be married, and the belief of this debauchery is called faith.

  Thomas Paine

  Bible, Believe, Atheism

  70 Copy quote