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Religion in its humility restores man to his only dignity, the courage to live by grace. — George Santayana · 1925What religion a man shall have is a historical accident, quite as much as what language he shall speak. — George Santayana · 1905
Tertullian2 quotes
What indeed has Athens to do with Jerusalem? — Tertullian · 220It is certainly no part of religion to compel religion. — Tertullian · 217
Thomas Paine2 quotes
My country is the world, and my religion is to do good. — Thomas Paine · 1792Any system of religion that has any thing in it that shocks the mind of a child cannot be a true system. — Thomas Paine · 1794
Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind. — Albert Einstein · 1940
I think it was a generous thought, and one that flowed from an exalted mind, that it was not improbable but God might be delighted with the various methods of worshipping him, which divided the whole world. — Alexander Pope · 1716
Liberty cannot be established without morality, nor morality without faith. — Alexis de Tocqueville · 1835
The religious vision, and its history of persistent expansion, is our one ground for optimism. Apart from it, human life is a flash of occasional enjoyments lighting up a mass of pain and misery, a bagatelle of transient experience. — Alfred North Whitehead · 1925
Religion is love; in no case is it logic. — Beatrice Potter Webb · 1926
A man without faith is like a fish without a bicycle. — Charles S. Harris · 1958
Many religions now come before us with ingratiating smirks and outspread hands, like an unctuous merchant in a bazaar. They offer consolation and solidarity and uplift, competing as they do in a marketplace. But we have a right to remember how barbarically they behaved when they were strong and were making an offer that people could not refuse. — Christopher Hitchens · 2007
I count religion but a childish toy, and hold there is no sin but ignorance. — Christopher Marlowe · 1593
Coleman1 quote
I always say, religion is a fine thing, taken in moderation. — Coleman · 1983
David Hume1 quote
Generally speaking, the errors in religion are dangerous; those in philosophy only ridiculous. — David Hume · 1739
Old religious factions are volcanoes burnt out. — Edmund Burke · 1792
The various modes of worship which prevailed in the Roman world were all considered by the people as equally true; by the philosopher as equally false; and by the magistrate as equally useful. And thus toleration produced not only mutual indulgence, but even religious concord. — Edward Gibbon · 1776
You may go over the world and you will find that every form of religion that has breathed upon this earth, has degraded woman. There is not one that has not always made her subject to man. — Elizabeth Cady Stanton · 1885
All religion, however, is nothing but the fantastic reflection in men's minds of those external forces which control their daily life. — Friedrich Engels · 1878
It has often been said, very truly, that religion is the thing that makes the ordinary man feel extraordinary; it is an equally important truth that religion is the thing that makes the extraordinary man feel ordinary. — G.K. Chesterton · 1906
There is only one religion, though there are a hundred versions of it. — George Bernard Shaw · 1898
There are reverent minds who ceaselessly scan the fields of Nature and the books of Science in search for gaps-gaps which they will fill up with God. As if God lived in gaps? — Henry Drummond · 1894
By religion, then, I understand a propitiation or conciliation of powers superior to man which are believed to direct and control the course of nature and of human life. — James George Frazer · 1922
It is a curious thing, do you know, Cranly said dispassionately, how your mind is supersaturated with the religion in which you say you disbelieve. — James Joyce · 1915
A myth is a religion in which no-one any longer believes. — James K. Feibleman · 1973
Sex and religion are bordering states. They use the same vocabulary, share like ecstasies, and often serve as a substitute for one another. — Jessamyn West · 1973
We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another. — Jonathan Swift · 1711
To die for a religion is easier than to live it absolutely. — Jorge Luis Borges · 1946
Karl Marx1 quote
Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world…it is the opium of the people. — Karl Marx · 1883
Lord Byron1 quote
There's nought, no doubt, so much the spirit calms As rum and true religion. — Lord Byron · 1819
In reality there are as many religions as there are individuals. — Mahatma Gandhi · 1909
Mark Twain1 quote
The church is always trying to get other people to reform; it might not be a bad idea to reform itself a little by way of example. — Mark Twain · 1880