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

  78 Copy quote

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

  Christopher Hitchens

  Inspirational, Wisdom, Atheist

  25 Copy quote

• All true religion must stand on true morality.

  Henry Ward Beecher

  Morality, True Religion

  Henry Ward Beecher, William Drysdale (1887). “Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit”

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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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• 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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• The priests of one religion never credit the miracles of another religion. Is this because priests instinctively know priests?

  Robert Green Ingersoll

  Miracle, Credit, Priests

  Robert Green Ingersoll (1907). “The works of Robert G. Ingersoll”, p.2603, Library of Alexandria

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• Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet.

  Napoleon Bonaparte

  Religious, Atheist, People

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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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• 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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• A religion is a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say, things set apart and forbidden-beliefs and practices which unite into one single moral community called a Church, all those who adhere to them.

  Emile Durkheim

  Practice, Community, Church

  Emile Durkheim, Steven Lukes (2014). “The Rules of Sociological Method: And Selected Texts on Sociology and Its Method”, p.17, Simon and Schuster

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• There is nothing wanting to make all rational and disinterested people in the world of one religion, but that they should talk together every day.

  Alexander Pope

  People, Together, World

  Alexander Pope, Alexander Chalmers (1807). “A Supplementary Volume to the Works of Alexander Pope, Esq: Containing Pieces of Poetry, Not Inserted in Warburton's and Warton's Editions : and a Collection of Letters, Now First Published”, p.128

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• So upright Quakers please both man and God.

  Alexander Pope

  Men, Quaker, Please

  Alexander Pope, William Roscoe (1847). “The works of Alexander Pope, esq., with notes and illustrations, by himself and others. To which are added, a new life of the author, an Estimate of his poetical character and writings, and occasional remarks by William Roscoe, esq”, p.331

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• Religion does what philosophy could never do; it shows the equal dealings of Heaven to the happy and the unhappy, and levels all human enjoyments to nearly the same standard. It gives to both rich and poor the same happiness hereafter, and equal hopes to aspire after it.

  Oliver Goldsmith

  Philosophy, Giving, Heaven

  Oliver Goldsmith (1871). “The works of Oliver Goldsmith: Vicar of Wakefield, select poems and comedies, with intr., notes and a life by J.F. Waller”, p.159

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• The solitary monk who shook the world
  From pagan slumber, when the gospel trump
  Thunder' d its challenge from his dauntless lips
  In peals of truth.

  Robert Montgomery

  Challenges, Lips, Slumber

  Robert Montgomery (1854). “The Poetical Works of Robert Montgomery ...”, p.186

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• Religion is like the fashion, one man wears his doublet slashed, another lashed, another plain; but every man has a doublet; so every man has a religion. We differ about the trimming.

  John Selden

  Fashion, Men, Trimming

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• Religion is for the man in humble life, and to raise his nature, and to put him in mind of a state in which the privileges of opulence will cease, when he will be equal by nature, and may be more than equal by virtue.

  Edmund Burke

  Humble, Men, Mind

  Edmund Burke (1852). “The works and correspondence of...Edmund Burke”, p.231

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• Religion is the basis of civil society, and the source of all good and of all comfort.

  Edmund Burke

  Comfort, Source, Bases

  Edmund Burke (1963). “Edmund Burke: Selected Writings and Speeches”, p.560, Transaction Publishers

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• Religion, to have any force upon men's understandings,--indeed, to exist at all,--must be supposed paramount to law, and independent for its substance upon any human institution, else it would be the absurdest thing in the world,--an acknowledged cheat.

  Edmund Burke

  Independent, Men, Law

  Edmund Burke (1852). “The Works and Correspondence Of...Edmund Burke”, p.26

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• True religion is the foundation of society. When that is once shaken by contempt, the whole fabric cannot be stable nor lasting.

  Edmund Burke

  Foundation, Fabric, Lasting

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• When religion doth with virtue join, it makes a hero like an angel shine.

  Edmund Waller

  Hero, Angel, Shining

  3 Copy quote

• If we traverse the world, it is possible to find cities without walls, without letters, without kings, without wealth, without coin, without schools and theatres; but a city without a temple, or that practiseth not worship, prayer, and the like, no one ever saw.

  Plutarch

  Kings, Prayer, Wall

  25 Copy quote

• It is not the church we want, but the sacrifice; not the emotion of admiration, but the act of adoration; not the gift, but the giving.

  John Ruskin

  Sacrifice, Giving, Church

  John Ruskin (1855). “¬The Seven Lamps of Architecture”, p.17

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• Humanity and Immortality consist neither in reason, nor in love; not in the body, nor in the animation of the heart of it, nor in the thoughts and stirrings of the brain of it;--but in the dedication of them all to Him who will raise them up at the last day.

  John Ruskin

  Heart, Dedication, Humanity

  John Ruskin (1858). “The Stones of Venice”, p.41

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• Many people make their own God; and he is much what the French may mean when they talk of le bon Dieu,--very indulgent, rather weak, near at hand when we want anything, but far away out of sight when we have a mind to do wrong. Such a God is as much an idol as if he were an image of stone.

  Julius Charles Hare

  Mean, Sight, Hands

  Julius Charles Hare, Augustus William Hare (1861). “Guesses at Truth, by Two Brothers: From the Fifth London Ed”, p.475

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• The language of religion can alone suit every situation and every mode of feeling.

  Madame de Stael

  Feelings, Suits, Language

  5 Copy quote