Religious Quotes

If someone had told me I would be Pope one day, I would have studied harder.

Hate your next-door neighbor, but don't forget to say grace.

When you heart is ablaze with the love of God, when you love other people - especially the ripsnorting sinners - so much that you dare to tell them about Jesus with no apologies, then never fear, there will be results.

All major religious traditions carry basically the same message, that is love, compassion and forgiveness the important thing is they should be part of our daily lives.

A man's ethical behaviour 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."

I assert that the cosmic religious experience is the strongest and the noblest driving force behind scientific research.

Consider Christmas - could Satan in his most malignant mood have devised a worse combination of graft plus bunkum than the system whereby several hundred million people get a billion or so gifts for which they have no use, and some thousands of shop clerks die of exhaustion while selling them, and every other child in the Western world is made ill from overeating - all in the name of the lowly Jesus?

We shortchange ourselves by regarding religious faith as a matter of intellectual assent. This is a modern aberration; the traditional Christian view is far more holistic, regarding faith as a whole-body experience. Sometimes it is, as W.H. Auden described it, 'a matter of choosing what is difficult all one's days as if it were easy.

While travelling near Tampa, Florida I passed the "Jehovah's Witness Assembly Hall" and was struck by the fact that that must be where they make them.

Somehow freedom for religious expression has become freedom from religious expression.

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.

My generation, faced as it grew with a choice between religious belief and existential despair, chose marijuana. Now we are in our Cabernet stage.

Art and Religion are, then, two roads by which men escape from circumstance to ecstasy. Between aesthetic and religious rapture there is a family alliance. Art and Religion are means to similar states of mind.

Establishing an equilibrium between the Islam of truth and Islam as an identity is one of the most difficult tasks of religious intellectuals.

Over the last 30 odd years, Democrats have moved to the right and the right has moved into the mental hospital. So what we have is one perfectly good party for hedge fund managers, credit card companies, banks, defense contractors, big agriculture and the pharmaceutical lobby... That's the Democrats. And they sit across the aisle from a small group of religious lunatics, flat-earthers and civil war re-enactors who mostly communicate by AM radio and call themselves the Republicans and who actually worry that Obama is a socialist. Socialist? He's not even a liberal.

Any civilization where the main symbol of religious veneration is a tool of execution is a bad place to have children.

I wonder if other dogs think poodles are members of a weird religious cult.

Let's not leave an educational vacuum to be filled by religious extremists who go to families who have no other option and offer meals, housing and some form of education. If we are going to combat extremism then we must educate those very same children.

I love God, and when you get to know Him, you find He's a Livin' Doll.

It is time for the government of China to stop holding innocent religious figures in captivity merely for peacefully protesting China's occupation of Tibet.

Hell is paved with infants skulls.

To put it in a few words, the true malice of man appears only in the state and in the church, as institutions of gathering together, of recapitulation, of totalization.

This story is true. Of course, there are many lies therein and most of it did not happen, but it's all true. In that sense it is deeply religious, perhaps even biblical.

The major obstacle to a religious renewal is the intellectual classes, who are highly influential and tend to view religion as primitive superstition. They believe that science has left atheism as the only respectable intellectual stance.

Liberty is the possibility of doubting, the possibility of making a mistake, the possibility of searching and experimenting, the possibility of saying No to any authority - literary, artistic, philosophic, religious, social and even political.

Our present ecological crisis, the biggest single practical threat to our human existence in the middle to long term, has, religious people would say, a great deal to do with our failure to think of the world as existing in relation to the mystery of God, not just as a huge warehouse of stuff to be used for our convenience.

From a religious point of view, if God had thought homosexuality is a sin, he would not have created gay people.

Faith is not a notion, but a real strong essential hunger, an attracting or magnetic desire of Christ, which as it proceeds from a seed of the divine nature in us, so it attracts and unites with its like.

These figures emphasize how soft people's commitment to God is. Americans are willing to expend some energy in religious activities such as attending church and reading the Bible, and they are willing to throw some money in the offering basket, but when it comes time to truly establishing their priorities and making a tangible commitment to knowing and loving God, most people stop short.

All people desire what they believe will make them happy. If a person is not full of desire for God, we can only conclude that he is engaged with another happiness.

The three most important things a man has are, briefly, his private parts, his money, and his religious opinions.

Belief is truth held in the mind; faith is a fire in the heart.

It isn't until you come to a spiritual understanding of who you are - not necessarily a religious feeling, but deep down, the spirit within - that you can begin to take control.

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.

The introduction of religious passion into politics is the end of honest politics, and the introduction of politics into religion is the prostitution of true religion.

The first step to improvement, whether mental, moral, or religious, is to know ourselves - our weakness, errors, deficiencies, and sins, that, by divine grace, we may overcome and turn from them all.

I'm not really religious but very spiritual. I give money to this company that manufactures hearing aids on a regular basis. More people should really hear me sing. I have a gift from God.

We can trust our doctors to be professional, to minister equally to their patients without regard to their political or religious beliefs. But we can no longer trust our professors to do the same.

The concept of neutrality can lead to a brooding and pervasive devotion to the secular and a passive, or even active, hostility to the religious. Such results are not only not compelled by the Constitution, but, it seems to me, are prohibited by it.

The problem with writing about religion is that you run the risk of offending sincerely religious people, and then they come after you with machetes.

The sight of nature fascinates, the family tie has a sweet enchantment and patriotism gives the religious spirit a fiery devotion to the powers that it reveres.

I believe in the equality of man; and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring to make our fellow-creatures happy.

Vegetarianism can easily reach religious proportions. Refraining from meat on moral grounds serves to dignify feelings of guilt toward sad-eyed, furry creatures and substitutes righteousness for squeamishness.

The short lesson that comes out of long experience in political agitation is something like this: all the motive power in all of these movements is the instinct of religious feeling. All the obstruction comes from attempting to rely on anything else. Conciliation is the enemy.

Not only were science and religion compatible, they were inseparable—th e rise of science was achieved by deeply religious Christian scholars.

The problem with Bush is that yes, he's religious in a fundamentalist sort of way, they read the Old Testament as a sort of charter for the chosen people to do what they like.

America's real plan is to fuel a civil war, while the national plan is for all Lebanese to live in peace with one another. There will be no return to civil war. All the political powers as well as the media must work to reduce religious tensions and make everyone understand that they will not allow Lebanon to be destroyed again.

This doesn't mean that they commit themselves to the view that this is all there is. Many scientists (including me) think that this is the case, but other scientists are religious, and believe that what is observed in nature is at least in part a result of God's will.

Remarkable is the greater openness of the Catholic Church towards people of other religious traditions and persuasions. The development has not been without problems, since some people have resisted it and others have pushed openness beyond the desirable point.

God sweetens outward pain with inward peace.

Business is religion, and religion is business. The man who does not make a business of his religion has a religious life of no force, and the man who does not make a religion of his business has a business life of no character

The religious superstitions of women perpetuate their bondage more than all other adverse influences.

To seduce a woman famous for strict morals, religious fervor and the happiness of her marriage: what could possibly be more prestigious?

By respect for life we become religious in a way that is elementary, profound and alive.

I believe that religious faith schools are highly dubious.

When a dog barks at the moon, then it is religion; but when he barks at strangers, it is patriotism!

A religious awakening which does not awaken the sleeper to love has roused him in vain.

I cannot now evaluate the events that, at the end of those thirty years, made me discover the necessity of religious belief. I was not reasoned into my disposition. Though I admire the structured thought of theology, it is to religion no more than counterpoint exercises are to music.

You talk to God, you're religious. God talks to you, you're psychotic.

If there ever was a religious war full of terror, it was the crusades. But you can't blame Christianity because a few adventurers did this. That's my message.

Being religious means asking passionately the question of the meaning of our existence and being willing to receive answers, even if the answers hurt.

Self is the root, the tree, and the branches of all the evils of our fallen state.

The State is the altar of political freedom and, like the religious altar, it is maintained for the purpose of human sacrifice.

Because most of the girls were still in mourning and all of them had lost their textbooks, even pencils and pens, Shaukat Ali began the first classes by reading to them from poetry and religious texts. "Reading, literature, and spirituality are good for the soul," he told them. "So we will start with these studies.

The artist himself may not think he is religious, but if he is sincere his sincerity in itself is religion.

What could begin to deny self, if there were not something in man different from self?

Religions are vague, of course. This means that they are easy to follow -you can interpret their prescriptions as you like. but it also means that it is easy to slip up -there is always some injunction you are violating. But Islam has no religious establishment - no popes, no bishops - that can declare by fiat which is the correct interpretation. As a result, the decision to oppose the state on the grounds that is insufficiently Islamic belongs to anyone who wishes to exercise it.

Doubt is part of all religion. All the religious thinkers were doubters.

A childish soul not inoculated with compulsory prayer is a soul open to any religious infection.

Nothing in the world delights a truly religious people so much as consigning them to eternal damnation.

We all remember how many religious wars were fought for a religion of love and gentleness; how many bodies were burned alive with the genuinely kind intention of saving souls from the eternal fire of hell.

There is no stopping the world's tendency to throw off imposed restraints, the religious authority that is based on the ignorance of the many, the political authority that is based on the knowledge of the few.

We should not run away from religious teachings. We should run to them.

One ape's hallucination is another ape's religious experience - it just depends on which one’s god module is overactive at the time.

All my life I have made it a rule never to permit a religious man or woman take for granted that his or her religious beliefs deserved more consideration than non-religious beliefs or anti-religious ones. I never agree with that foolish statement that I ought to respect the views of others when I believe them to be wrong.

That new technologies and techniques would be forthcoming was a fundamental article of Christian faith. Hence, no bishops or theologians denounced clocks or sailing ships-although both were condemned on religious grounds in various non-Western societies.

If you can impress any man with an absorbing conviction of the supreme importance of some moral or religious doctrine; if you can make him believe that those who reject that doctrine are doomed to eternal perdition; if you then give that man power, and by means of his ignorance blind him to the ulterior consequences of his own act,-he will infallibly persecute those who deny his doctrine.

We've never been a religious band, but the media wants us to be.

The story of the betrayal of Jesus by Judas gave a moral and religious rationale to anti-Jewish sentiment, and that's what made it persistent and vicious.

So the best marriages and the deepest relationships with God grow out of the startling discovery that there is nothing one can do to earn love, and even more startling, that there is also nothing one can do to unlearn it, or to keep oneself from being loved. This is a religious awakening that is utterly different from any other religious experience, no matter how profoundly spiritual it may seem.

Gods are fragile things; they may be killed by a whiff of science or a dose of common sense.

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.

The fact that some religious fanatics might support a theory doesn't invalidate it, anymore than the concurrence of UFO abduction cults invalidates the notion of extra-terrestrial life.

There is no real religious experience that does not express itself in charity.

The liberty of the Press is the Palladium of all the civil, political and religious rights of an Englishman.

An intellectual is going to have doubts, for example, about a fundamentalist religious doctrine that admits no doubt, about an imposed political system that allows no doubt, about a perfect aesthetic that has no room for doubt.

Work is a substitute religious experience for many workaholics.

I'm religious. I think this is something God had planned for me.

Faith is the proper name of religious experience.

The greatest saint in the world is not he who prays most or fasts most; it is not he who gives alms, or is most eminent for temperance, chastity or justice. It is he who is most thankful to God.

And also a lot of Muslims are no more religious then the average Swede. For them it's natural that human rights come first.

Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can exist apart from religious principle.

I'm not religious in any formal sense, not in any God sense.

Dad was also a deeply, unabashedly religious man... , But he never made the fatal mistake of so many politicians - wearing his faith on his sleeve to gain political advantage.

For those who may not find happiness to exercise religious faith, it's okay to remain a radical atheist; it's absolutely an individual right, but the important thing is with a compassionate heart - then no problem.

Puritanism, believing itself quick with the seed of religious liberty, laid, without knowing it, the egg of democracy.

I don't want to write a mass before being in a state to do it well, that is a Christian. I have therefore taken a singular course to reconcile my ideas with the exigencies of Academy rules. They ask me for something religious: very well, I shall do something religious, but of the pagan religion. . . . I have always read the ancient pagans with infinite pleasure, while in Christian writers I find only system, egoism, intolerance, and a complete lack of artistic taste.

Every effort for progress, for enlightenment, for science, for religious, political, and economic liberty, emanates from the minority, and not from the mass

We need less posturing and more genuine charisma. Charisma was originally a religious term, meaning "of the spirit" or "inspired." It's about letting God's light shine through us. It's about a sparkle in people that money can't buy. It's an invisible energy with visible effects. To let go, to just love, is not to fade into the wallpaper. Quite the contrary, it's when we truly become bright. We're letting our own light shine.

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.

The first sign of your becoming religious is that you are becoming cheerful

High ethics and religious principles form the basis for success and happiness in every area of life.

Religious faith, indeed, relates to that which is above us, but it must arise from that which is within us.

Religious awe is the same organic thrill which we feel in a forest at twilight, or in a mountain gorge.

As the wicked are hurt by the best things, so the godly are bettered by the worst.

From Mount Hollywood, Los Angeles looks rather nice, enveloped in a haze of changing colors. Actually, and in spite of all the healthful sunshine and ocean breezes, it is a bad place - full of old, dying people, who were born old of tired pioneer parents, victims of America - full of curious wild and poisonous growths, decadent religious cults and fake science, and wildcat enterprises, which, with their aim for quick profit, are doomed to collapse and drag down multitudes of people.

To believe in God is to yearn for His existence, and furthermore, it is to act as if He did exist.

Religion and science both profess peace (and the sincerity of the professors is not being doubted), but each always turns out to have a dominant part in any war that is going or contemplated.

It shouldn't be too much of a surprise that the Internet has evolved into a force strong enough to reflect the greatest hopes and fears of those who use it. After all, it was designed to withstand nuclear war, not just the puny huffs and puffs of politicians and religious fanatics.

My feeling is religious insofar as I am imbued with the consciousness of the insufficiency of the human mind to understand more deeply the harmony of the Universe which we try to formulate as "laws of nature".

The idea of legally establishing inalienable, inherent and sacred rights of the individual is not of political but religious origin.

The religious idea of God cannot do full duty for the metaphysical infinity.

Religious ideas have sprung from the same need as all the other achievements of culture: from the necessity for defending itself against the crushing supremacy of nature.

Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise, every expanded prospect.

Compassion is not religious business, it is human business, it is not luxury, it is essential for our own peace and mental stability, it is essential for human survival.

The fruits of Christianity were religious wars, butcheries, crusades, inquisitions, extermination of the natives of America, and the introduction of African slaves in their place.

To be furious in religion is to be irreligiously religious.

To preserve health is a moral and religious duty, for health is the basis of all social virtues. We can no longer be useful when not well.

Once you attempt legislation upon religious grounds, you open the way for every kind of intolerance and religious persecution.

I would describe my spirituality as exactly the opposite of having a religious affiliation.

Supreme art is a traditional statement of certain heroic and religious truth, passed on from age to age, modified by individual genius, but never abandoned.

If our life is not a course of humility, self-denial, renunciation of the world, poverty of spirit, and heavenly affection, we do not live the lives of Christians.

A religious person is devout in the sense that he has no doubt about the significance of those superpersonal objects and goals which neither require nor are capable of rational foundation