Proselytizing Quotes:

Man is emphatically a proselytizing creature.

- Thomas Carlyle

source: Thomas Carlyle (2009). “Sartor Resartus: The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh: Easyread Large Bold Edition”, p.10, ReadHowYouWant.com

topic: Nature, Men, Humanity, Proselytizing

I don't think we should discriminate against an organization or congregation because they're religious, if they're doing good work. But government can't subsidize proselytizing or worship or religious activity. It can't.

- Jim Wallis

topic: Religious, Thinking, Government, Proselytizing, Congregation

The act of bell ringing is symbolic of all proselytizing religions. It implies the pointless interference with the quiet of other people.

- Ezra Pound

topic: People, Church, Literature, Symbolic, Interference

Evangelization does not consist in proselytizing, for proselytizing is a caricature of evangelization, but rather evangelizing entails attracting by our witness those who are far off, it means humbly drawing near to those who feel distant from God in the Church, drawing near to those who feel judged and condemned outright by those who consider themselves to be perfect and pure.

- Pope Francis

topic: Mean, Drawing, Perfect, Proselytizing

Proselytizing is more a passionate search for something not yet found than a desire to bestow upon the world something we already have. It is a search for a final and irrefutable demonstration that our absolute truth is indeed the one and only truth. The proselytizing fanatic strengthens his own faith by converting others.

- Eric Hoffer

topic: Society, Desire, Finals, True Believer, Proselytizing

Missionaries in the developing world waste a lot of time and money (not to mention the goodwill of non-Christians) proselytizing to the needy. . . . While missionaries do many noble things at great risk to themselves, their dogmatism still spreads ignorance and death. By contrast, volunteers for secular organizations . . . do not waste . . . time telling people about the virgin birth of Jesus. Nor do they tell people in sub-Saharan Africa - where nearly four million people die from AIDS every year - that condom use is sinful.

- Sam Harris

topic: Christian, Jesus, Ignorance, Jesus Birth, Sub Saharan Africa

For at least two thirds of our miseries spring from human stupidity, human malice and those great motivators and justifiers of malice and stupidity, idealism, dogmatism and proselytizing zeal on behalf of religious or political idols

- Aldous Huxley

topic: Religious, Spring, Idols, Dogmatism, Proselytizing

How much do you have to hate somebody to not proselytize?

- Penn Jillette

topic: Hate, Everlasting Life, Proselytizing

Starting out from the fact that the frustrated predominate among the early adherents of all mass movements and that they usually join of their own accord, it is assumed: 1) that frustration of itself, without any proselytizing prompting from the outside, can generate most of the peculiar characteristics of the true believer; 2) that an effective technique of conversion consists basically in the inculcation and fixation of proclivities and responses indigenous to the frustrated mind.

- Eric Hoffer

source: Eric Hoffer (1982). “Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer”, HarperCollins Publishers

topic: Frustration, Frustrated, Mind, Proselytizing

Contributing to others, not converting others, but for those who are interested, going where invited, speaking when asked, teaching when asked and so on, not proselytizing and missionary-izing. Not shoving the truth down people's throats, as if we know what's good for them. But being open when asked, when appropriate, and being very inclusive and open minded.

- Surya Das

source: Source: theindiespiritualist.com

topic: Teaching, People, Missionary, Proselytizing

The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property - either as a child, a wife, or a concubine - must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men.

- Winston Churchill

topic: Children, Men, Law, Muslim Faith, Frenzy

How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries. Besides the fanatical frenzy which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is a fateful fatalistic apathy.

- Winston Churchill

topic: Dog, Men, Islam, Muslim Faith, Frenzy

If you believe that there’s a heaven and hell and people could be going to hell—or not getting eternal life or whatever—and you think that, well, it’s not really worth telling them this because it would make it socially awkward. . . . How much do you have to hate somebody to not proselytize? How much do you have to hate somebody to believe that everlasting life is possible and not tell them that?

- Penn Jillette

source: "A Gift of a Bible". "Penn Says" episode 192, videolog on Crackle.com, December 9, 2008.

topic: Life, Faith, Hate, Socially Awkward, Everlasting Life

Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live.

- Winston Churchill

topic: Agriculture, Insecurity, Followers, Muslim Faith, Frenzy

Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities, but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step...

- Winston Churchill

topic: Warrior, Fearless, Quality, Social Development, Militant

All religious vows, codes, and commitments are null & void herein. Please refrain from contaminating the ideosphere with harmful memes through prayer, reverence, holy books, proselytizing, prophesying, faith, speaking in tongues or spirituality. Fight the menace of second-hand faith! Humanity sincerely thanks you!

- Greg Erwin

topic: Thank You, Religious, Prayer, Null, Speaking In Tongues

A wide and vague impression exists that so-called Eastern religion is more contemplative, innocuous, and humane than the proselytizing monotheisms of the West. Don't believe a word of this: try asking the children of Indochina who were dumped by their parents for inherited deformities that were attributed to sins in a previous 'life.

- Christopher Hitchens

topic: Atheist, Children, Believe, Indochina, Contemplative

I'm not proselytizing my method. I don't believe that one writer should tell other writers how to write.

- John Irving

source: "Why novelist John Irving's latest protagonist is a fiction writer". "PBS NewsHour" with Jeffrey Brown, www.pbs.org. November 3, 2015.

topic: Believe, Writing, Should, Proselytizing

We who don't want radical Islam to spread must compete with the agents of radical Islam. I want to see what would happen if Christians, feminists and Enlightenment thinkers were to start proselytizing in the Muslim community.

- Ayaan Hirsi Ali

source: "The Feminist". Interview with Deborah Solomon, www.nytimes.com. May 21, 2010.

topic: Christian, Feminist, Community, Muslim Community, Enlightenment Thinkers

I am a huge fan of proselytizing. I am a huge fan of speaking your mind. The only way we can share the universe... is by talking very strongly about what we believe.

- Penn Jillette

topic: Believe, Talking, Mind, Proselytizing

Orthodox Judaism is a thicket of detailed injunctions, Biblical commandments elaborated during centuries of prohibited proselytizing, functioning to limit interaction with outsiders. At the opposite extreme, Islam, still the most rapidly expanding of faiths, demands little immediate knowledge from those who would convert. The convert is permitted to enter and then to learn by participation, although there are plenty of detailed regulations and abstruse theological ideas to be pursued later, and the regulations do effectively separate believers from nonbelievers.

- Mary Catherine Bateson

topic: Biblical, Opposites, Ideas, Proselytizing, Thickets

The religions whose theology is least preoccupied with events in time and most concerned with eternity, have been consistently less violent and more humane in political practice. Unlike early Judaism, Christianity and Mohammedanism (all obsessed with time) Hinduism and Buddhism have never been persecuting faiths, have preached almost no holy wars and have refrained from that proselytizing religious imperialism which has gone hand in hand with political and economic oppression of colored people.

- Aldous Huxley

topic: Religious, War, Buddhism, Proselytizing, Hinduism And Buddhism

A big issue for Muslims is when Christian evangelizing - telling people about the faith - becomes proselytizing, actively trying to convert. Some Muslims say Christian evangelizing seems like colonialism.

- Bob Abernethy

source: "Religion&Ethics NewsWeekly" with Bob Abernethy, www.pbs.org. September 19, 2008.

topic: Christian, Issues, People, Proselytizing

If I don’t talk about my religion, if I say I’m not discussing it or different humanitarian things I’m working on, they’re like, “He’s avoiding it.” If I do talk about it, it becomes, “Oh, he’s proselytizing.”

- Tom Cruise

source: "Tom Cruise Talks 'Rock of Ages' and Oprah-gate in his 2012 Playboy Interview". Interview with Michael Fleming, www.playboy.com. June 9, 2017.

topic: Different, Humanitarian, Avoiding, Proselytizing

There is nothing more explosive than a skilled population condemned to inaction. Such a population is likely to become a hotbed of extremism and intolerance, and be receptive to any proselytizing ideology, however absurd and vicious, which promises vast action.

- Eric Hoffer

topic: Promise, Population, Action, Proselytizing

We can inspire others through witness so that one grows together in communicating. BUt the worst thing of all is religious proselytism, which paralyses: 'I am talking with you in order to persuade you.' No. Each person dialogues, starting with his and her own identity. The church grows by attracting, not proselytizing.

- Pope Francis

source: "GMA Hosts Thrilled By Pope's 'Fantastic' Call Not to Proselytize, Ignore Context" by Kyle Drennen, newsbusters.org. August 4, 2014.

topic: Religious, Happy Life, Order, Proselytizing

Instead of seeming to impose new obligations, they should appear as people who wish to share their joy, who point to a horizon of beauty and who invite others to a delicious banquet. It is not by proselytizing that the Church grows, but by attraction.

- Pope Francis

topic: Faith, Inspiration, People, Proselytizing

I'm nutty for nutrition. I've become one of those people who can't stop talking about the connection between food and health. Now that I know how much changing what you eat can transform your life, I can't stop proselytizing.

- Robin Quivers

topic: Talking, People, Connections, Proselytizing, Nutty

I have a process that I seem to always, to some degree, as a writer, adhere to, but I certainly have never imposed the way I write a novel on my students. When I had students, I never said, "You should never start writing a novel until you have the last sentence." I never did that, and I wouldn't do it now, but people now seem so interested in the process [of writing fiction] that I have to constantly make it clear when I describe mine that I'm not being prescriptive. I'm not proselytizing.

- John Irving

source: Source: www.guernicamag.com

topic: Writing, People, Degrees, Proselytizing

People think that, that conversion to Judaism is just a modern phenomenon. But there was an era in the late Roman Empire Judaism was not a proselytizing religion. It didn't go out looking for converts, but it accepted converts.

- Susan Jacoby

source: "'Strange Gods' Chronicles The History Of Secularism And Conversion". "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross, www.npr.org. February 17, 2016.

topic: Thinking, People, Empires, Proselytizing