Religion Quotes - Page 33

• I believe that religion, generally speaking, has been a curse to mankind.

  H. L. Mencken

  Religious, Believe, Mankind

  "What I Believe" in The Forum 84 (p. 139), September 1930.

  38 Copy quote

  Show source

• Man is a Religious Animal. He is the only Religious Animal. He is the only animal that has the True Religion - several of them.

  Mark Twain

  Religious, Atheist, Animal

  "The Lowest Animal" (1940)

  27 Copy quote

  Show source

• He who has art and science also has religion, but those who do not have them better have religion.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Art, Science, Art And Science

  9 Copy quote

• All the men of the Old Testament were polygamists, and Christ and Paul, the central figures of the New Testament, were celibates, and condemned marriage by both precept and example.

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton

  Men, Example, Christ

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1993). “The Woman's Bible”, p.195, UPNE

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• I read in the newspaper that the Catholic Church finally decided that it had been theologically improper to try to convert the Jews. Whoops! Sorry for all those inquisitions, crusades, and autos-da-fe. Previous popes were wrong - infallible, perhaps, but wrong.

  Alan Dershowitz

  Sorry, Catholic, Church

  8 Copy quote

• True religion teaches us to reverence what is under us, to recognize humility and poverty, and, despite mockery and disgrace, wretchedness, suffering, and death, as things divine.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Humility, Suffering And Death, Poverty

  11 Copy quote

• The period of Catholic ascendancy was on the whole one of the most deplorable in the history of the human mind. . . . The spirit that shrinks from enquiry as sinful and deems a state of doubt a state of guilt, is the most enduring disease that can afflict the mind of man. Not till the education of Europe passed from the monasteries to the universities, not till Mohammedan science, and classical free thought, and industrial independence broke the sceptre of the Church, did the intellectual revival of Europe begin.

  William Edward Hartpole Lecky

  Men, Europe, Catholic

  8 Copy quote

• . . . I fail to find a trace [in Protestantism] of any desire to set reason free. The most that can be discovered is a proposal to change masters. From being a slave of the papacy, the intellect was to become the serf of the Bible.

  Thomas Huxley

  Desire, Failing, Proposal

  Thomas Henry Huxley (1967). “The Essence of T. H. Huxley: Selections Form His Writings”

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• Love, the one supreme, unceasing source of human felicity, the one sole joy which lifts the whole mortal existence into the empyrean, was by it [Christianity] degraded into the mere mechanical action of reproduction.

  Ouida

  Joy, Action, Christianity

  Ouida (1896). “Views and Opinions”

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• He was of the faith chiefly in the sense that the church he currently did not attend was Catholic.

  Kingsley Amis

  Funny, Faith, Humorous

  One Fat Englishman (1963) ch. 8

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• Religion has caused more harm than any other idea since the beginning of time. There's nothing good I can say about it. People use it as a crutch.

  Larry Flynt

  Ideas, People, Use

  "Larry Flynt: What I've Learned" by john H. Richardson, www.esquire.com. January 29, 2007.

  21 Copy quote

  Show source

• The only excuse for God is that he doesn't exist.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Atheism, Excuse

  12 Copy quote

• 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)

  48 Copy quote

  Show source

• No man ever believes that the Bible means what it says: he is always convinced that it says what he means.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Inspirational, Funny, Life

  "Our Theatres In The Nineties". Book by George Bernard Shaw, 1932.

  92 Copy quote

  Show source

• The constitutional freedom of religion is the most inalienable and sacred of all human rights

  Thomas Jefferson

  Freedom, Rights, Political

  Thomas Jefferson (1984). “Jefferson: Writings”, p.593, Library of America

  70 Copy quote

  Show source

• The reason for our success is no secret. It comes down to one single principle that transcends time and geography, religion and culture. It’s the Golden Rule – the simple idea that if you treat people well, the way you would like to be treated, they will do the same.

  Isadore Sharp

  Success, Time, Attitude

  "CEOs onPeople - In Conversation With Isadore Sharp, Founder and Chairman, Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts". Lee Hecht Harrison Interview, onpeople.lhh.com.

  82 Copy quote

  Show source

• Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?

  Epicurus

  God, Spiritual, Religious

  475 Copy quote

• Whether religion be true or false, it must be necessarily granted to be the only wise principle and safe hypothesis for a man to live and die by.

  John Tillotson

  Wise, Men, True Or False

  John Tillotson (1717). “The works of the most reverend Dr. John Tillotson containing two hundred sermons and discourses, on several occasions ...”, p.210

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Things divine are not attainable by mortals who understand sensual things.

  Zoroaster

  Sensual, Divine, Mortals

  45 Copy quote

• Take away God and religion, and men live to no purpose, without proposing any worthy end of life to themselves.

  John Tillotson

  Men, Purpose, End Of Life

  John Tillotson (1696). “The Works of the Most Reverend Dr. John Tillotson ...: Containing Fifty Four Sermons and Discourses, on Several Occasions. Together with The Rule of Faith”, p.330

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Religion gives a dignity to distress.

  James Hervey

  Giving, Dignity, Distress

  James Hervey (1856). “Meditations and contemplations: to which is prefixed the life of the author”, p.33

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• We are religious by nature.

  Charles Henry Parkhurst

  Religious

  7 Copy quote

• The only impregnable citadel of virtue is religion; for there is no bulwark of mere morality, which some temptation may not overtop or undermine, and destroy.

  Jane Porter

  Temptation, May, Morality

  Sir Philip Sidney, Jane Porter (1807). “Aphorisms of Sir Philip Sidney: With Remarks”, p.21

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• It is not the business of religion in these days to isolate herself from the world like John the Baptist. She must go down into the world like Jesus Christ.

  Hugh Reginald Haweis

  Jesus, Baptists, World

  Hugh Reginald Haweis (1875). “Speech in Season”, p.18

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

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

  Madame de Stael

  Feelings, Suits, Language

  10 Copy quote