Religion Quotes

500+ Sourced quotes

Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama

Karl Marx

Liberty Hyde Bailey

Frank Murphy

John Wesley

Peter Benenson

Matthew Arnold

This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness.

Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama

Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world…It is the opium of the people.

In my view, the Christian religion is the most important and one of the first things in which all children, under a free government ought to be instructed.

Religion has caused more harm than any other idea since the beginning of time. There's nothing good I can say about it. People use it as a crutch.

But even in the Christian religion, much of its real meaning is hidden by words that are misleading and symbols that but few understand.

Revealed religion is one thing, revealed legislation, another.

Moses Mendelssohn

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

Well! some people talk of morality, and some of religion, but give me a little snug property.

Maria Edgeworth

The greatest tragedy in mankind's entire history may be the hijacking of morality by religion.

Arthur C. Clarke

Religion, n. A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable.

Science may eventually explain the world of How. The ultimate world of Why may remain for contemplation, philosophy, religion.

Liberty Hyde Bailey

All outward forms of religion are almost useless, and are the cause of endless strife.... Believe there is a great power silently working all things for good, behave yourself and never mind the rest.

Religion is about turning untested belief into unshakable truth through the power of institutions and the passage of time.

Richard Dawkins

No great advance has ever been made in science, politics, or religion, without controversy.

A fascist is one whose lust for money or power is combined with such an intensity of intolerance toward those of other races, parties, classes, religions, cultures, regions or nations as to make him ruthless in his use of deceit or violence to attain his ends.

Henry A. Wallace

Much advance publicity was made for the address the Master would deliver on The Destruction of the World and a large crowd gathered at the monastery grounds to hear him.
The address was over in less than a minute. All he said was:
"These things will destroy the human race: politics without principle, progress without compassion, wealth without work, learning without silence, religion without fearlessness and worship without awareness."

Anthony de Mello

Please accept a promise from me in his name that I will always live in the religion in which he died.

Giacomo Meyerbeer

In regard to the terrors as well as the superstitions and immoralities of religion, it will not do to urge that they are due only to the imperfections of the men who professed the various religions. If religion cannot restrain evil, it cannot claim effective power for good.

Morris Raphael Cohen

I can not be a traitor, for I owe him no allegiance. He is not my Sovereign; he never received my homage; and whilst life is in this persecuted body, he never shall receive it. To the other points whereof I am accused, I freely confess them all. As Governor of my country I have been an enemy to its enemies; I have slain the English; I have mortally opposed the English King; I have stormed and taken the towns and castles which he unjustly claimed as his own. If I or my soldiers have plundered or done injury to the houses or ministers of religion, I repent me of my sin; but it is not of Edward of England I shall ask pardon.

William Wallace

I have no religion, and at times I wish all religions at the bottom of the sea. He is a weak ruler who needs religion to uphold his government; it is as if he would catch his people in a trap. My people are going to learn the principles of democracy, the dictates of truth and the teachings of science. Superstition must go. Let them worship as they will; every man can follow his own conscience, provided it does not interfere with sane reason or bid him against the liberty of his fellow-men.

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

Take away the Book of Mormon and the revelations, and where is our religion? We have none.

Joseph Smith, Jr.

Religion is organized to satisfy and guide the soul—politics does the same thing for the body.

A religion old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the universe as revealed by modern science, might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths. Sooner or later such a religion will emerge.

Passion is universal humanity. Without it religion, history, romance and art would be useless.

Honoré de Balzac

There is no religion without love, and people may talk as much as they like about their religion, but if it does not teach them to be good and kind to other animals as well as humans, it is all a sham.