Religion Quotes

• 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.

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• There is only one religion, though there are a hundred versions of it.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Life And Love, Fear, Atheism

  Plays Pleasant and Unpleasant (1898) vol. 2, preface

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• Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet.

  Napoleon Bonaparte

  Religious, Atheist, People

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• Religion is a by-product of fear. For much of human history it may have been a necessary evil, but why was it more evil than necessary? Isn’t killing people in the name of god a pretty good definition of insanity?

  Arthur C. Clarke

  Atheist, Names, People

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• You talk to God, you're religious. God talks to you, you're psychotic.

  Doris Egan

  God, Religious, House

  "House / House vs. God". www.imdb.com. 2006.

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• What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Inspirational, Wisdom, Atheist

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• We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart.

  H. L. Mencken

  Beautiful, Respect, Religious

  Minority Report: H. L. Mencken's Notebooks (1956)

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• 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

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• 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.)

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• 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

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• Religions are the cradles of despotism.

  Marquis de Sade

  Tyrants, Literature, Cradle

  Marquis de Sade “Philosophy in the Bedroom: An Erotic Novel”, Library of Alexandria

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• The religion that is afraid of science dishonors God and commits suicide.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Suicide, Spirituality, Evolution

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• 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)

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• 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.

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

  Steven Weinberg

  Religious, Atheist, If There Is A God

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• 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

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  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.

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• People who want to share their religious views with you almost never want you to share yours with them.

  Dave Barry

  Religious, Views, People

  Dave Barry (1998). “Dave Barry Turns 50”, Crown

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• But who prays for Satan? Who, in eighteen centuries, has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner that needed it most?

  Mark Twain

  Funny, Sympathy, Spiritual

  Mark Twain (2012). “Autobiographical Writings”, p.338, Penguin

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• I believe in God, but not as one thing, not as an old man in the sky. I believe that what people call God is something in all of us. I believe that what Jesus and Mohammed and Buddha and all the rest said was right. It's just that the translations have gone wrong.

  John Lennon

  Inspirational, God, Spiritual

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• 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

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  Religion. It's given people hope in a world torn apart by religion.

  Jon Stewart

  Death, Hope, Atheist

  "The Daily Show". www.imdb.com. 1996 - ....

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• A religion old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the universe as revealed by modern science, might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths. Sooner or later such a religion will emerge.

  Carl Sagan

  Science, Stressed, Atheism

  Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan (2011). “Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space”, p.71, Ballantine Books

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• Blind belief in authority is the greatest enemy of truth.

  Albert Einstein

  Inspirational, Spiritual, Atheist

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

  Mark Twain

  Religious, Humorous, Eye

  Mark Twain (2012). “Adventures of Tom Sawyer Companion”, p.41, BookCaps Study Guides

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