quotes about Religious
-
Good religious poetry... is likely to be most justly appreciated and most discriminately relished by the undevout.
-- A. E. Housman -
Justice is never given; it is exacted and the struggle must be continuous for freedom is never a final fact, but a continuing evolving process to higher and higher levels of human, social, economic, political and religious relationship.
-- A. Philip Randolph -
Misuse of reason might yet return the world to pre-technological night; plenty of religious zealots hunger for just such a result, and are happy to use the latest technology to effect it.
-- A.C. Grayling -
Religious apologists complain bitterly that atheists and secularists are aggressive and hostile in their criticism of them. I always say: look, when you guys were in charge, you didn't argue with us, you just burnt us at the stake. Now what we're doing is, we're presenting you with some arguments and some challenging questions, and you complain.
-- A.C. Grayling -
-
I Am More Spiritual Than Religious; Besides I Am Not A Fanatic
-- Aamir Khan -
Establishing an equilibrium between the Islam of truth and Islam as an identity is one of the most difficult tasks of religious intellectuals.
-- Abdolkarim Soroush -
So I went to English school, secondary English school, so forget going to Mecca for my religious education
-- Abdullah Ahmad Badawi -
Government...may not be hostile to any religion or to the advocacy of no-religion; and it may not aid, foster, or promote one religion or religious theory against another... The First Amendment mandates governmental neutrality...
-- Abe Fortas -
-
The orthodox Jewish faith practically excludes woman from religious life.
-- Abraham CahanSource : Abraham Cahan (2013). “The Rise of David Levinsky”, p.44, Courier Corporation
-
I value science--none can prize it more, It gives ten thousand motives to adore: Be it religious, as it ought to be, The heart it humbles, and it bows the knee.
-- Abraham ColesSource : Abraham Coles (1866). “The Microcosm: A Poem, Read Before the Medical Society of New Jersey at Its Centenary Anniversary: with the Address Delivered as President, Jan. 24, 1866”, p.22
-
A religious man is a person who holds God and man in one thought at one time, at all times, who suffers harm done to others, whose greatest passion is compassion, whose greatest strength is love and defiance of despair.
-- Abraham Joshua Heschel -
Calvinism is an all-embracing system of principles... It is rooted in a form of religion which was peculiarly its own, and form that specific religious consciousness there was developed first a particular theology, then a special church-order, and then a given form for political and social life.
-- Abraham Kuyper -
-
When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. That's my religion.
-- Abraham Lincoln -
The highest art is always the most religious, and the greatest artist is always a devout person.
-- Abraham LincolnSource : John Stuart Blackie (1858). “On beauty: three discourses delivered in the University of Edinburgh”, p.104
-
In regards to this great Book [the Bible], I have but to say it is the best gift God has given to man. All the good the Savior gave to the world was communicated through this Book. But for it we could not know right from wrong. All things most desirable for man's welfare, here and hereafter, are found portrayed in it.
-- Abraham Lincoln -
Certainly there is no contending against the Will of God; but still there is some difficulty in ascertaining, and applying it, to particular cases.
-- Abraham Lincoln -
-
And having thus chosen our course, without guile, and with pure purpose, let us renew our trust in God, and go forward without fear, and with manly hearts.
-- Abraham Lincoln -
Let us diligently apply the means, never doubting that a just God, in his own good time, will give us the rightful result.
-- Abraham Lincoln -
And whereas it is the duty of nations as well as of men, to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God ... and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord.
-- Abraham Lincoln -
America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.
-- Abraham Lincoln -
-
We brought the religious leaders and the secular development workers together in one room. We asked the religious leaders what are your reservations about development workers? And we asked the development workers, what are your reservations about religious leaders? It turns out that most of the problems are not really problems at all, but rather misunderstandings, misconceptions, and mis-communications.
-- Abul Kalam Azad -
I think church and state should remain entirely separate at all costs, and that the decision of religious marriage should be of each faith to debate and decide free of political influence.
-- Adam Rickitt -
A long time ago, Trinity and I made a list of types of guys you should never date. We add to it every now and then. It includes things like never date a guy whose computer costs more than his car (you'll never get him to pay attention to you except over instant messages), never date a guy who has a pet lizard (he's probably into weird stuff in bed) and never under any circumstances go on a second date with a guy who says the word "married" on the first date (he'll turn out to be a mama's boy or a religious type)
-- Adam SelzerSource : Adam Selzer (2010). “I Kissed a Zombie, and I Liked It”, p.46, Delacorte Books for Young Readers
-
But alas, they are all sadly deficient, because they leave us under the domination of political and religious prejudices; and they are as inefficient as the sleepy dose of an ordinary sermon.
-- Adam Weishaupt -
-
But I have contrived an explanation which has every advantage; is inviting to christians of every communion; gradually frees them from all religious prejudices; cultivates the social virtues; and animates them by a great, a feasable, a speedy prospect of universal happiness, in a state of liberty and moral equality, freed from the obstacles which subordination, rank, and riches, continually throw in our way. My explanation is accurate and complete, my means are effectual, and irresistable. Our secret association works in a way that nothing can withstand, and man shall soon be free and happy.
-- Adam Weishaupt -
my opinion is that we have, in the person of Da Free John, a Spiritual Master and religious genius of the ultimate degree. I assure you I do not mean that lightly. I am not tossing out high-powered phrases to 'hype' the works of Da Free John. I am simply offering to you my own considered opinion: Da Free John's teaching is, I believe, unsurpassed by that of any other spiritual Hero, of any period, of any place, of any time, of any persuasion.
-- Adi Da -
The exclusion of true esoteric religion has been the business of the State since ancient times. At first this was done via the establishment of the popular idealism of exoteric religious institutions in league with the State. But in modern times the same process is done by the strategic exclusion of conventional religious cultism, mystical idealism, and higher evolutionary Wisdom from the mechanisms of popular culture.
-- Adi DaSource : Adi Da Samraj (1980). “Scientific proof of the existence of God will soon be announced by the White House!: prophetic wisdom about the myths and idols of mass culture and popular religious cultism, the new priesthood of scientific and political materialism, and the secrets of enlightenment hidden in the body of man”, Dawn Horse Pr
-
The Truth that is to be Realized may be summarized simply as the Realization that no matter what is arising, no matter how many others are present, there is only One Being. This is precisely different from the childish but common religious notion that even when you are alone there is always Someone Else present, Who will look out for you if you do the right thing. True freedom is not a matter of striking a deal with an All-Powerful Parental Deity; no such God exists. True freedom is in the Realization that there is only God and You are That One.
-- Adi DaSource : "The Parental Deity and the One to Be Realized" by Adi Da, February 7, 1983.
-
-
How many does it take to metamorphose wickedness into righteousness? One man must not kill. If he does, it is murder.... But a state or nation may kill as many as they please, and it is not murder. It is just, necessary, commendable, and right. Only get people enough to agree to it, and the butchery of myriads of human beings is perfectly innocent. But how many does it take?
-- Adin Ballou -
This contest between the secular and religious visions of government is really the main choice to be made. It won't be decided in one election, but it is a basic choice between an open and progressive Iraq and one that is backward and continues to fall behind.
-- Adnan Pachachi -
While both denominations maintain missions in Asia and Africa in order to win new followers for their doctrine- an activity which can boast but very modest success compared to the advance of the Mohammedan faith in particular- right here in Europe they lose millions and millions of inward adherents who either are alien to all religious life or simply go their own ways. The consequences, particularly from a moral point of view, are not favorable.
-- Adolf Hitler -
Secular schools can never be tolerated because such a school has no religious instruction and a general moral instruction without a religious foundation is built on air; consequently, all character training and religion must be derived from faith . . . We need believing people.
-- Adolf Hitler -
-
The greatness of every mighty organization embodying an idea in this world lies in the religious fanaticism and intolerance with which, fanatically convinced of its own right, it intolerantly imposes its will against all others.
-- Adolf Hitler -
This human world of ours would be inconceivable without the practical existence of a religious belief.
-- Adolf Hitler -
I will never allow anyone to divide this people once more into religious camps, each fighting the other
-- Adolf Hitler -
The man who contemplates the universe with his eyes wide open is the man with the greatest amount of natural piety; not in the religious sense, but in the sense of an intimate harmony with things.
-- Adolf Hitler -
-
Theater, art, literature, cinema, press, posters, and window displays must be cleansed of all manifestations of our rotting world and placed in the service of a moral, political, and cultural idea.
-- Adolf Hitler -
Of course, even the general designation 'religious' includes various basic ideas or convictions, for example, the indestructibility of the soul, the eternity of its existence, the existence of a higher being, etc. But all these ideas, regardless of how convincing they may be for the individual, are submitted to the critical examination of this individual and hence to a fluctuating affirmation or negation until emotional divination or knowledge assumes the binding force of apodictic faith.
-- Adolf Hitler -
I have followed the Church in giving our party program the character of unalterable finality, like the Creed. The Church has never allowed the Creed to be interfered with. It is fifteen hundred years since it was formulated, but every suggestion for its amendment, every logical criticism, or attack on it, has been rejected.
-- Adolf Hitler -
The Church has realized that anything and everything can be built up on a document of that sort, no matter how contradictory or irreconcilable with it. The faithful will swallow it whole, so long as logical reasoning is never allowed to be brought to bear on it.
-- Adolf Hitler -
-
When I go out in the morning and see these men standing in their queues and look into their pinched faces, then I believe I would be no Christian, but a very devil, if I felt no pity for them, if I did not, as did our Lord two thousand years ago, turn against those by whom today this poor people are plundered and exposed.
-- Adolf Hitler -
The fight against syphilis demands a fight against prostitution, against prejudices, old habits, against previous conceptions, general views among them not least the false prudery of certain circles. The first prerequisite for even the moral right to combat these things is the facilitation of earlier marriage for the coming generation.
-- Adolf Hitler -
In late marriage alone lies the compulsion to retain an institution which, twist and turn as you like, is and remains a disgrace to humanity, an institution which is damned ill-suited to a being who with his usual modesty likes to regard himself as the 'image' of God.
-- Adolf Hitler -
The best characterization is provided by the product of this religious education, the Jew himself. His life is only of this world, and his spirit is inwardly as alien to true Christianity as his nature two thousand years previous was to the great founder of the new doctrine.
-- Adolf Hitler -
-
The great masses of people do not consist of philosophers; precisely for the masses, [religious] faith is often the sole foundation of a moral attitude... For the political man, the value of a religion must be estimated less by its deficiencies than by the virtue of a visibly better substitute. As long as this appears to be lacking, what is present can be demolished only by fools or criminals.
-- Adolf Hitler -
This pride of race is a quality which the German, fundamentally, does not possess. The reason for this is that for these last three centuries the country has been torn by internal dissension and religious wars and has been subjected to a variety of foreign influences, to the influence, for example, of Christianity-for Christianity is not a natural religion for the Germans, but a religion that has been imported and which strikes no responsive chord in their hearts and is foreign to the inherent genius of the race. (13th February 1945)
-- Adolf Hitler -
Due to his own original special nature, the Jew cannot possess a religious institution, if for no other reason because he lacks idealism in any form, and hence belief in a hereafter is absolutely foreign to him. And a religion in the Aryan sense cannot be imagined which lacks the conviction of survival after death in some form. Indeed, the Talmud is not a book to prepare a man for the hereafter, but only for a practical and profitable life in this world.
-- Adolf Hitler -
The Government, being resolved to undertake the political and moral purification of our public life, are creating and securing the conditions necessary for a really profound revival of religious life
-- Adolf Hitler -
-
In the ranks of the movement [National Socialist movement], the most devout Protestant could sit beside the most devout Catholic, without coming into the slightest conflict with his religious convictions. The mighty common struggle which both carried on against the destroyer of Aryan humanity had, on the contrary, taught them mutually to respect and esteem one another.
-- Adolf Hitler -
The great masses of people do not consist of philosophers; precisely for the masses, faith is often the sole foundation of a moral attitude. The various substitutes have not proved so successful from the standpoint of results that they could be regarded as a useful replacement for previous religious creeds. But if religious doctrine and faith are really to embrace the broad masses, the unconditional authority of the content of this faith is the foundation of all efficacy.
-- Adolf Hitler -
Never, never, never join a movement that persecutes people because of their faith.
-- Adrian Rogers -
One does not give birth in a void, but rather in a cultural and political context. Laws, professional codes, religious sanctions, and ethnic traditions all affect women's choices concerning childbirth.
-- Adrienne Rich -
-
The divine element manifests itself (or show up) in man as well by his aptitude for science, than by his aptitude for virtue. True morality, true philosophy and true art are in their essence ("dans leur essence", Fr.) religious.
-- African Spir -
Canada has an experience of governance of which much of the world stands in dire need. It is a world of increasing dissension and conflict in which a significant contribution is the failure of different ethnic, tribal, religious, or social groups to search for, and agree upon, a common space for harmonious co-existence.
-- Aga Khan IVSource : Address at the Leadership and Diversity Conference, Gatineau, Canada, May 19, 2004.
-
None of these situations are identical. You cannot take one set of issues from one country and apply it to another. They are all different, in terms of history, and the religious compositions of the populations involved.
-- Aga Khan IV -
There is no limit to what God can do through us if we are a yielded and purified people.
-- Aiden Wilson Tozer -
-
I say that a Christian congregation can survive and often appear to prosper in the community by the exercise of human talent and without any touch from the Holy Spirit! All that religious activity and the dear people will not know anything better until the great and terrible day when our self-employed talents are burned with fire and only that which was wrought by the Holy Ghost will stand forever!
-- Aiden Wilson Tozer -
We are in an age of religious complexity. The simplicity which is in Christ is rarely found among us. In its stead are programs, methods, organizations, and a world of nervous activities which occupy time and attention but can never satisfy the longing of the heart.
-- Aiden Wilson Tozer -
Yes, I believe you can be right with God and still not like the way some people behave. Our admonition is to love them in a larger and more comprehensive way because we are all one in Christ Jesus. This kind of love is indeed a Christian virtue!
-- Aiden Wilson Tozer -
To truly know God we must long for Him without any other motive than reaching God Himself.
-- Aiden Wilson Tozer -
-
One compromise here, another there and soon enough the so-called Christian and the man in the world look the same.
-- Aiden Wilson Tozer -
No one will make progress with God until our eyes are lifted to the faithfulness of God and we stop looking at ourselves!
-- Aiden Wilson Tozer -
Be thankful, but be careful that you don't become so enamored of God's good gifts that you fail to worship the giver.
-- Aiden Wilson Tozer -
If you want to be holy then you must give time to God and not just intend to.
-- Aiden Wilson Tozer -
-
An honest man is strange when he is among dishonest men, but it is a good kind of strangeness.
-- Aiden Wilson Tozer -
Christianity is hard when we try to serve God in man's way instead of serving God in God's way.
-- Aiden Wilson Tozer -
Some people's lives would drastically change if they would obey God as strictly as they obey their doctors.
-- Aiden Wilson Tozer -
The vague and tenuous hope that God is too kind to punish the ungodly has become a deadly opiate for the consciences of millions.
-- Aiden Wilson Tozer -
-
Our modern Western culture only recognises the first of these, freedom of desires. It then worships such a freedom by enshrining it at the forefront of national constituitions and bills of human rights. One can say that the underlying creed of most Western democracies is to protect their people's freedom to realise their desires, as far as this is possible. It is remarkable that in such countries people do not feel very free. The second kind of freedom, freedom from desires, is celebrated only in some religious communities. It celebrates contentment, peace that is free from desires.
-- Ajahn Brahm -
I grew up in a very religious family. I could read the Qu'ran easily at the age of five.
-- Akhmad KadyrovSource : "Interview: Panic! At The Disco's Brendon Urie On His New Album, 'Death Of A Bachelor'". Interview with Pip Williams, www.coupdemainmagazine.com. February 22, 2016.
-
Atheists have just as much of a right to the public discourse as any ... people of any religious faith in this country.
-- Al Gore -
I'm not religious in any formal sense, not in any God sense.
-- Al Purdy -
-
I can think of no greater disaster to this country than to have the voters of it divide upon religious lines.
-- Al Smith -
I believe in the support of the public school as one of the cornerstones of American liberty. I believe in the right of every parent to choose whether his child shall be educated in the public school or in a religious school supported by those of his own faith.
-- Al Smith -
Hanifs (Muslims) are stumbling, Christians all astray Jews wildered, Magians far on error’s way. We mortals are composed of two great schools Enlightened knaves or else religious fools.
-- Al-Maʿarri -
They recite their sacred books, although the fact informs me that these are a fiction from first to last. O Reason, thou (alone) speakest the truth. Then perish the fools who forged the religious traditions or interpreted them!
-- Al-MaʿarriSource : "Studies in Islamic Poetry (The Meditations of Al-Ma'arri)". Book by Reynold Alleyne Nicholson, 1921.
-
-
The world holds two classes of men - intelligent men without religion, and religious men without intelligence.
-- Al-MaʿarriSource : "A Short History of Freethought, Ancient and Modern, Volume I". Book by John Mackinnon Robertson, 1906.
-
They all err - Muslims, Christians, Jews and Magians. There are two kinds of humans - the intelligent, who have no religion, and the religious, who have no intellect.
-- Al-Maʿarri -
It's as though either you accept [religious] doctrine and then you can have all the nice stuff, or you reject the doctrine and you're living in some kind of spiritual wasteland under the guidance of CNN and Walmart.
-- Alain de Botton -
The universe is large and we are tiny, without the need for further religious superstructure. One can have so-called spiritual moments without belief in the spirit.
-- Alain de Botton -
-
Religions are so subtle, so complicated, so intelligent in many ways that they're not fit to be abandoned to the religious alone; they're for all of us.
-- Alain de Botton -
I dont see we can have a separation of church and state in this government if you have to pass a religious test to get in this government. And I want to warn everyone in the press and all the voters out there: if you demand expressions of religious faith from politicians, you are just begging to be lied to. They wont all lie to you but a lot of them will. And itll be the easiest lie they ever had to tell to get your votes. So every day till the end of this campaign, Ill answer any question anyone has on government, but if you have a question on religion, please, go to church.
-- Alan Alda -
We all learn in school that the judicial, legislative and executive branches of government must check and balance each other. But other non state institutions must participate in this important system of checks and balances as well. These checking institutions include the academy, the media, religious institutions and NGOs.
-- Alan Dershowitz -
I have a great advantage over many of my colleagues inasmuch as my students bring with them to class their own personal knowledge of national, regional, religious, ethnic, occupational, and family folklore traditions.
-- Alan Dundes -
-
The church of Jesus needs to wake up from the exile of passivity and embrace liminality and adventure or continue to remain a religious ghetto for culturally co-opted, fearful, middle-class folk.
-- Alan HirschSource : Michael Frost, Alan Hirsch (2011). “The Faith of Leap (Shapevine): Embracing a Theology of Risk, Adventure & Courage”, p.92, Baker Books
-
You can do more with 12 disciples than with 1,200 religious consumers.
-- Alan Hirsch -
There’s no such religious force in the West as powerful as consumerism.
-- Alan Hirsch -
The First Amendment isn't about free thought and free opinion and free belief. The First Amendment is about free exercise--the carrying into practice of religious principles, and beliefs, and convictions.
-- Alan KeyesSource : Alan Keyes' Remarks at the Alabama Republican Assemblies Luncheon, www.keyesarchives.com. April 29, 2000.
-
-
If I replace the word God with the word nature, I am far more at ease with the whole religious enterprise.
-- Alan S. Kesselheim -
In every aspect of the religious life, American faith has met American culture--and American culture has triumphed.
-- Alan WolfeSource : Alan Wolfe (2005). “The Transformation of American Religion: How We Actually Live Our Faith”, p.3, University of Chicago Press
-
Imprisoning philosophy within the professionalizations and specializations of an institutionalized curriculum, after the manner of our contemporary European and North American culture, is arguably a good deal more effective in neutralizing its effects than either religious censorship or political terror
-- Alasdair MacIntyreSource : Alasdair MacIntyre (2007). “Edith Stein: A Philosophical Prologue, 1913-1922”, p.4, Rowman & Littlefield
-
To me, marriage is partly a religious thing and I'm not religious.
-- Alastair Campbell -
-
Realism should only be the means of expression of religious genius... or, at the other extreme, the artistic expressions of monkeys which are quite satisfied with mere imitation. In fact, art is never realistic though sometimes it is tempted to be. To be really realistic a description would have to be endless.
-- Albert Camus -
I wrote 'Turn Your Radio On' in 1937, and it was published in 1938. At this time radio was relatively new to the rural people, especially gospel music programs. I had become alert to the necessity of creating song titles, themes, and plots, and frequently people would call me and say, 'Turn your radio on, Albert, they're singing one of your songs on such-and-such a station.' It finally dawned on me to use their quote, 'Turn your radio on,' as a theme for a religious originated song, and this was the beginning of 'Turn Your Radio On' as we know it.
-- Albert E. Brumley -
The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion. It should transcend a personal God and avoid dogmas and theology. Covering both the natural and the spiritual, it should be based on a religious sense arising from the experience of all things, natural and spiritual, as a meaningful unity. Buddhism answers this description.
-- Albert Einstein -
I do not believe in immortality of the individual, and I consider ethics to be an exclusively human concern with no superhuman authority behind it.
-- Albert Einstein -
-
It seems to me that the idea of a personal God is an anthropological concept which I cannot take seriously. I also cannot imagine some will or goal outside the human sphere... Science has been charged with undermining morality, but the charge is unjust. A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.
-- Albert Einstein -
It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.
-- Albert Einstein -
It is this mythical, or rather symbolic, content of the religious traditions which is likely to come into conflict with science. This occurs whenever this religious stock of ideas contains dogmatically fixed statements on subjects which belong in the domain of science.
-- Albert Einstein -
A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, of the manifestations of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty - it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute the truly religious attitude; in this sense, and in this alone, I am a deeply religious man.
-- Albert Einstein -