An aphorism is nothing else but the slightest
QUOTES AND APHORISMS ON RELIGION
Of all possible sexual perversions, religion is the only one to have ever been scientifically systematized.
Louis Aragon (1897-1982, French poet)
In the past, to subjugate the
people, the powerful used force, laws and religion; now, they also have
football and television.
The true meaning of religion is thus, not simply morality, but morality touched by emotion.
Matthew Arnold (1822-1888, British poet, critic)
There is a world of practical religion in simply being considerate of others.
Roger Babson (1875-1967, American statistician, columnist)
It is true, that a little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion.
Francis Bacon (1561-1626, British philosopher, essayist, statesman)
The first revolt is against the supreme tyranny of theology, of the phantom of God. As long as we have a master in heaven, we will be slaves on earth.
Mikhail Bakunin (1814-1876, Russian political theorist)
Religion: a daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable.
Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914, American author, editor, journalist, "The Devil's Dictionary")
My poor are my best patients. God pays for them.
Herman Boerhaave (1668-1738, Dutch physician, botanist)
Call your opinions your creed, and you will change them every week. Make your creed simply and broadly out of the revelation of God, and you will keep it to the end.
Phillips Brooks (1835-1893, American minister, poet)
And lips say "God be pitiful," who never said, "God be praised."
Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861, British poet)
Anti-Catholicism is the anti-Semitism of the intellectual.
Patrick Buchanan (1938-, American statesman)
Nothing is so fatal to religion as indifference which is, at least, half infidelity.
Edmund Burke (1729-1797, British political writer, statesman)
One gives praise to God not only through prayers of thanksgiving, but also through obedience to His commandments and service to others, especially those less fortunate than ourselves.
George H. Bush (1924-, American President (41st))
I am always most religious upon a sunshiny day...
Lord Byron (1788-1824, British poet)
A cosmic philosophy is not constructed to fit a man; a cosmic philosophy is constructed to fit a cosmos. A man can no more possess a private religion than he can possess a private sun and moon.
Gilbert K. Chesterton (1874-1936, British author)
If religion is only human, and its form is man's form, it follows that everything in religion is true.
Emile Auguste Chartier
A religion, that is, a true religion, must consist of ideas and facts both; not of ideas alone without facts, for then it would be mere Philosophy; -- nor of facts alone without ideas, of which those facts are symbols, or out of which they arise, or upon which they are grounded: for then it would be mere History.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834, British poet, critic, philosopher)
Religion! What treasure untold resides in that heavenly word!
William Cowper (1731-1800, British poet)
Man is made to adore and to obey: but if you will not command him, if you give him nothing to worship, he will fashion his own divinities, and find a chieftain in his own passions.
Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881, British statesman, Prime Minister)
My religion consists of a humble admiration of the unlimitable superior who reveals Himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble minds. That deeply emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God.
Albert Einstein (1879-1955, German-born American physicist)
The religion that is afraid of science dishonors God and commits suicide.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882, American poet, essayist)
Religion is the dream of the human mind. But even in dreams we do not find ourselves in emptiness or in heaven, but on earth, in the realm of reality; we only see real things in the entrancing splendor of imagination and caprice, instead of in the simple daylight of reality and necessity.
Ludwig Feuerbach (1804-1872, German philosopher)
Serving God is doing good to man. But praying is thought an easier service and is therefore more generally chosen.
Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790, American scientist, publisher, diplomat)
Our knowledge of the historical worth of certain religious doctrines increases our respect for them, but does not invalidate our proposal that they should cease to be put forward as the reasons for the precepts of civilization. On the contrary! Those historical residues have helped us to view religious teachings, as it were, as neurotic relics, and we may now argue that the time has probably come, as it does in an analytic treatment, for replacing the effects of repression by the results of the rational operation of the intellect.
Sigmund Freud (1856-1939, Austrian physician, founder of Psychoanalysis)
Culture's essential service to a religion is to destroy intellectual idolatry, the recurrent tendency in religion to replace the object of its worship with its present understanding and forms of approach to that object.
Northrop Frye (1912-1991, Canadian literary critic)
Culture's essential service to a religion is to destroy intellectual idolatry, the recurrent tendency in religion to replace the object of its worship with its present understanding and forms of approach to that object.
Northrop Frye (1912-1991, Canadian literary critic)
Religion was nearly dead because there was no longer real belief in future life; but something was struggling to take its place -- social service -- the ants creed, the bees creed.
John Galsworthy (1867-1933, British novelist, playwright)
All religions have based morality on obedience, that is to say, on voluntary slavery. That is why they have always been more pernicious than any political organization. For the latter makes use of violence, the former -- of the corruption of the will.
Alexander Herzen (1812-1870, Russian journalist, political thinker)
It's incongruous that the older we get, the more likely we are to turn in the direction of religion. Less vivid and intense ourselves, closer to the grave, we begin to conceive of ourselves as immortal.
Edward Hoagland (1932-, American novelist, essayist)
For it is with the mysteries of our religion, as with wholesome pills for the sick, which swallowed whole, have the virtue to cure; but chewed, are for the most part cast up again without effect.
Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679, British philosopher)
To know a person's religion we need not listen to his profession of faith but must find his brand of intolerance.
Eric Hoffer (1902-1983, American author, philosopher)
To know a person's religion we need not listen to his profession of faith but must find his brand of intolerance.
Eric Hoffer (1902-1983, American author, philosopher)
I do benefits for all religions -- I'd hate to blow the hereafter on a technicality.
Bob Hope (1903-2003, American comedian, actor)
Give us a religion that will help us to live -- we can die without assistance.
Elbert Hubbard (1859-1915, American author, publisher)
The convent, which belongs to the West as it does to the East, to antiquity as it does to the present time, to Buddhism and Muhammedanism as it does to Christianity, is one of the optical devices whereby man gains a glimpse of infinity.
Victor Hugo (1802-1885, French poet, dramatist, novelist)
Toleration is the best religion.
Victor Hugo (1802-1885, French poet, dramatist, novelist)
You never see animals going through the absurd and often horrible fooleries of magic and religion. Dogs do not ritually urinate in the hope of persuading heaven to do the same and send down rain. Asses do not bray a liturgy to cloudless skies. Nor do cats attempt, by abstinence from cat's meat, to wheedle the feline spirits into benevolence. Only man behaves with such gratuitous folly. It is the price he has to pay for being intelligent but not, as yet, quite intelligent enough.
Aldous Huxley (1894-1963, British author)
To become a popular religion, it is only necessary for a superstition to enslave a philosophy.
Dean William R. Inge (1860-1954, Dean of St. Paul's, London)
There must be something solemn, serious, and tender about any attitude which we denominate religious. If glad, it must not grin or snicker; if sad, it must not scream or curse.
William James (1842-1910, American psychologist, professor, author)
I have tried to keep things in my hands and lost them all, but what I have given into the Lord's hands I still possess.
Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968, American Civil Rights leader, Nobel Prize winner, 1964)
A man with God is always in the majority.
John Knox (1505-1572, Scottish historian, reformer)
Perdition shall be the lot of man, except for those who have faith and do good works and exhort each other to justice and fortitude.
The Koran (c. 500 AD, Islamic Religious Bible)
When a culture feels that its end has come, it sends for a priest.
Karl Kraus (1874-1936, Austrian satirist)
To what excesses will men not go for the sake of a religion in which they believe so little and which they practice so imperfectly!
Jean De La Bruyere (1645-1696, French classical writer)
Talk to me about the truth of religion and I'll listen gladly. Talk to me about the duty of religion and I'll listen submissively. But don't come talking to me about the consolations of religion or I shall suspect that you don't understand.
C. S. Lewis (1898-1963, British academic, writer, Christian apologist)
I count religion but a childish toy, and hold there is no sin but innocence.
Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593, British dramatist, poet)
Oh senseless man, who cannot possibly make a worm, and yet will make Gods by dozens.
Michel Eyquem De Montaigne (1533-1592, French philosopher, essayist)
After coming into contact with a religious man I always feel I must wash my hands.
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900, German philosopher)
There is nothing more innately human than the tendency to transmute what has become customary into what has been divinely ordained.
Suzanne Lafollette (1893-1983, American feminist, writer)
My religion is very simple, my religion is kindness.
Dalai Lama
A man has no religion who has not slowly and painfully gathered one together, adding to it, shaping it; and one's religion is never complete and final, it seems, but must always be undergoing modification.
D. H. Lawrence (1885-1930, British author)
A church is disaffected when it is persecuted, quiet when it is tolerated, and actively loyal when it is favored and cherished.
Thomas B. Macaulay (1800-1859, American essayist and historian)
Can a mortal ask questions which God finds unanswerable? Quite easily, I should think. All nonsense questions are unanswerable.
C. S. Lewis (1898-1963, British academic, writer, Christian apologist)
Wherever an altar is found, there civilization exists.
Joseph De Maistre (1753-1821, French diplomat, philosopher)
But is it not the fact that religion emanates from the nature, from the moral state of the individual? Is it not therefore true that unless the nature be completely exercised, the moral state harmonized, the religion cannot be healthy?
Harriet Martineau (1802-1876, British writer, social critic)
Religion is a temper, not a pursuit.
Harriet Martineau (1802-1876, British writer, social critic)
Religion is the opium of the masses.
Karl Marx (1818-1883, German political theorist, social philosopher)
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 (1818-1883, German political theorist, social philosopher)
Archbishop -- A Christian ecclesiastic of a rank superior to that attained by Christ.
H. L. Mencken (1880-1956, American editor, author, critic, humorist)
Thanksgiving is nothing if not a glad and reverent lifting of the heart to God in honor and praise for His goodness.
James R. Miller (American golfer)
Nobody can deny but religion is a comfort to the distressed, a cordial to the sick, and sometimes a restraint on the wicked; therefore whoever would argue or laugh it out of the world without giving some equivalent for it, ought to be treated as a common enemy.
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689-1762, British society figure, letter writer)
As each Sister is to become a Co-Worker of Christ in the slums, each ought to understand what God and the Missionaries of Charity expect from her. Let Christ radiate and live his life in her and through her in the slums. Let the poor, seeing her, be drawn to Christ and invite him to enter their homes and their lives. Let the sick and suffering find in her a real angel of comfort and consolation. Let the little ones of the streets cling to her because she reminds them of him, the friend of the little ones.
Mother Teresa (1910-1997, Albanian-born Roman Catholic missionary)
When the soul drifts uncertainly between life and the dream, between the mind's disorder and the return to cool reflection, it is in religious thought that we should seek consolation.
Gerard De Nerval (1808-1855, French novelist, poet)
From the age of fifteen, dogma has been the fundamental principle of my religion: I know no other religion; I cannot enter into the idea of any other sort of religion; religion, as a mere sentiment, is to me a dream and a mockery.
John Henry Newman (1801-1890, British religious leader, prelate, writer)
A wise architect observed that you could break the laws of architectural art provided you had mastered them first. That would apply to religion as well as to art. Ignorance of the past does not guarantee freedom from its imperfections.
Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971, American theologian, historian)
There's no reason to bring religion into it. I think we ought to have as great a regard for religion as we can, so as to keep it out of as many things as possible.
Sean O'Casey (1884-1964, Irish dramatist)
Man is born broken. He lives by mending. And, the grace of God is the glue.
Eugene O'Neill (1888-1953, American dramatist)
All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.
Thomas Paine (1737-1809, Anglo-American political theorist, writer)
Every religion is good that teaches man to be good; and I know of none that instructs him to be bad.
Thomas Paine (1737-1809, Anglo-American political theorist, writer)
Men despise religion. They hate it and are afraid it may be true.
Blaise Pascal (1623-1662, French scientist, religious philosopher)
Religion, oh, just another of those numerous failures resulting from an attempt to popularize art.
Ezra Pound (1885-1972, American poet, critic)
A maker of idols is never an idolater.
Chinese Proverb (Sayings of Chinese origin)
It is certain that if you would have the whole secret of a people, you must enter into the intimacy of their religion.
Edgar Quinet (1803-1875, French poet, historian, politician)
It is not God that is worshipped but the group or authority that claims to speak in His name. Sin becomes disobedience to authority not violation of integrity.
Sir Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan
The idea of the sacred is quite simply one of the most conservative notions in any culture, because it seeks to turn other ideas -- uncertainty, progress, change -- into crimes.
Salman Rushdie (1948-, Indian-born British author)
Religions, which condemn the pleasures of sense, drive men to seek the pleasures of power. Throughout history power has been the vice of the ascetic.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970, British philosopher, mathematician, essayist)
Religions are the cradles of despotism.
Marquis De Sade (1740-1814, French author)
Religions are the great fairy tales of conscience.
George Santayana (1863-1952, American philosopher, poet)
It makes sense that there is no sense without God.
Edith Schaeffer
All the sweetness of religion is conveyed to the world by the hands of story-tellers and image-makers. Without their fictions the truths of religion would for the multitude be neither intelligible nor even apprehensible; and the prophets would prophesy and the teachers teach in vain.
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950, Irish-born British dramatist)
My religion? Well, my dear, I am a Millionaire. That is my religion.
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950, Irish-born British dramatist)
There is only one religion, though there are a hundred versions of it.
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950, Irish-born British dramatist)
I think that the leaf of a tree, the meanest insect on which we trample, are in themselves arguments more conclusive than any which can be adduced that some vast intellect animates Infinity.
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822, British poet)
Religion is probably, after sex, the second oldest resource which human beings have available to them for blowing their minds.
Susan Sontag (1933-, American essayist)
By the year 2000 we will, I hope, raise our children to believe in human potential, not God.
Gloria Steinem (1934-, American feminist writer, editor)
If you have two religions in your country, they will cut each other' throat; if you have thirty religions, they will live in peace.
Francois-Marie Arouet de Voltaire (1694-1778, French historian, writer)
Religion is the sole technique for the validating of values.
Allen Tate (1899-1979, American critic, poet)
Cast your cares on God; that anchor holds.
Lord Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892, British poet)
Arguments about Scripture achieve nothing but a stomachache and a headache.
Tertullian (160-240, Roman Christian author and polemicist)
Call no man your father upon the earth, for one is your Father, which is in heaven.
The Holy Bible (Sacred scriptures of Christians and Judaism)
Moreover it is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful.
The Holy Bible (Sacred scriptures of Christians and Judaism) Source: Corinthians 4.2
Religion is the state of being grasped by an ultimate concern, a concern which qualifies all other concerns as preliminary and which itself contains the answer to the question of a meaning of our life.
Paul Tillich (1886-1965, German protestant theologian, philosopher)
The main business of religions is to purify, control, and restrain that excessive and exclusive taste for well-being which men acquire in times of equality.
Alexis De Tocqueville (1805-1859, French social philosopher)
I cannot see how a man of any large degree of humorous perception can ever be religious -- except he purposely shut the eyes of his mind and keep them shut by force.
Mark Twain (1835-1910, American humorist, writer)
It is a good and gentle religion, but inconvenient.
Mark Twain (1835-1910, American humorist, writer)
A good test of a man's religion is its vitality.
Author Unknown
Only happy people can learn. Only happy people can teach. Our religion should put a sparkle in our eyes and a tone in our voice, and a spring in our step that bears witness of our faith and confidence in the goodness of God.
Author Unknown
Religion is a man using a divining rod. Philosophy is a man using a pick and shovel.
Author Unknown
Religion is insurance in this world against fire in the next.
Author Unknown
Religion is like holding on to a rock in the middle of a raging river; faith is learning how to swim.
Author Unknown
For a truly religious man nothing is tragic.
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951, Austrian philosopher)
Religion enables us to ignore nothingness and get on with the jobs of life.
John Updike (1932-, American novelist, critic)
When it comes to money, everyone is of the same religion.
Francois-Marie Arouet de Voltaire (1694-1778, French historian, writer)
Not every religion has to have St. Augustine's attitude to sex. Why even in our culture marriages are celebrated in a church, everyone present knows what is going to happen that night, but that doesn't prevent it being a religious ceremony.
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951, Austrian philosopher)
Religion is love: in no case is it logic.
Beatrice Potter Webb
Can you tell a plain man the road to heaven? Certainly, turn at once to the right, then go straight forward.
William Wilberforce
Religions die when they are proved to be true. Science is the record of dead religions.
Oscar Wilde (1856-1900, British author, wit)
Don't try to tear down other people's religion about their ears, Build up your own perfect structure of truth, and invite your listeners to enter in and enjoy it's glories.
Brigham Young (1801-1877, American Mormon leader)
By night an atheist half believes in God.
Edward Young (1683-1765, British poet, dramatist)
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