"I would rather live my life as if there is a God and die to find out there isn't, than live as if there isn't and to die to find out that there is."
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Quotes about Religion
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"Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful."
Lucius Annaeus Seneca"When the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said 'Let us pray.' We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land."
Desmond Tutu"Religion is part of the human make-up. It's also part of our cultural and intellectual history. Religion was our first attempt at literature, the texts, our first attempt at cosmology, making sense of where we are in the universe, our first attempt at health care, believing in faith healing, our first attempt at philosophy."
Christopher Hitchens"We have to pray with our eyes on God, not on the difficulties."
Oswald Chambers"Prayer is aligning ourselves with the purposes of God."
E. Stanley Jones"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."
Napoleon Bonaparte"The more I study religions the more I am convinced that man never worshipped anything but himself."
Richard Burton"To be a Christian without prayer is no more possible than to be alive without breathing."
Martin Luther"Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither."
C. S. Lewis"The World is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion."
Thomas Paine"My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness."
Dalai Lama"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use."
Galileo Galilei"Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads."
Henry David Thoreau"Teach us to give and not to count the cost."
Saint Ignatius"Even if a unity of faith is not possible, a unity of love is."
Hans Urs von Balthasar"When I do good I feel good, when I do bad I feel bad, and that's my religion."
Abraham Lincoln"Science can purify religion from error and superstition. Religion can purify science from idolatry and false absolutes."
Pope John Paul II"See, I have set before you this day life and good, death and evil... I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse; therefore choose life."
Moses"However many holy words you read, however many you speak, what good will they do you if you do not act on upon them?"
Buddha"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."
Dalai Lama"Prayer does not change God, but it changes him who prays."
Soren Kierkegaard"Prayer is the key of the morning and the bolt of the evening."
Mahatma Gandhi"You cannot believe in God until you believe in yourself."
Swami Vivekananda"The Kingdom of Heaven is not a place, but a state of mind."
John Burroughs"The Son of God became man so that we might become God."
Athanasius"Religion is the everlasting dialogue between humanity and God. Art is its soliloquy."
Franz Werfel"Jesus is ideal and wonderful, but you Christians - you are not like him."
Mahatma Gandhi"Nothing is so fatal to religion as indifference."
Edmund Burke"I love you when you bow in your mosque, kneel in your temple, pray in your church. For you and I are sons of one religion, and it is the spirit."
Khalil Gibran"I'm a Muslim, but I think Jesus would have a drink with me. He would be cool. He would talk to me."
Mike Tyson"Toleration is the best religion."
Victor Hugo"Doubt is part of all religion. All the religious thinkers were doubters."
Isaac Bashevis Singer"Within the covers of the Bible are the answers for all the problems men face."
Ronald Reagan"I am thankful I can see much to admire in all religions."
Alfred Russel Wallace"I like the religion that teaches liberty, equality and fraternity."
B. R. Ambedkar"No man ever believes that the Bible means what it says: He is always convinced that it says what he means."
George Bernard Shaw"When I admire the wonders of a sunset or the beauty of the moon, my soul expands in the worship of the creator."
Mahatma Gandhi"I prayed for twenty years but received no answer until I prayed with my legs."
Frederick Douglass"God is a thought who makes crooked all that is straight."
Friedrich Nietzsche"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."
Albert Einstein"Religion is the idol of the mob; it adores everything it does not understand."
Frederick the Great"I hope I never get so old I get religious."
Ingmar Bergman"I was raised Catholic, but my father's people were Methodist, so we went to both churches."
Aaron Neville"We are a religious people whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being."
William O. Douglas"There are many of us that are willing to do great things for the Lord, but few of us are willing to do little things."
Dwight L. Moody"A thorough knowledge of the Bible is worth more than a college education."
Theodore Roosevelt"We can only learn to know ourselves and do what we can - namely, surrender our will and fulfill God's will in us."
Saint Teresa of Avila"I never knew how to worship until I knew how to love."
Henry Ward Beecher"So I say to you, Ask and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you."
Jesus Christ"The Bible shows the way to go to heaven, not the way the heavens go."
Galileo Galilei"Religion's in the heart, not in the knees."
Douglas William Jerrold"Disturbances in society are never more fearful than when those who are stirring up the trouble can use the pretext of religion to mask their true designs."
Denis Diderot"The Godhead consists of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The Father is a material being."
Orson Pratt"Give yourself entirely to God, enter and hide in the hidden ground of your soul."
Johannes Tauler"Where it is a duty to worship the sun it is pretty sure to be a crime to examine the laws of heat."
John Morley"I call religion a natural authority, but it has usually been conceived as a supernatural authority."
Herbert Read"We are punished by our sins, not for them."
Elbert Hubbard"There is no need for temples, no need for complicated philosophies. My brain and my heart are my temples; my philosophy is kindness."
Dalai Lama"For God so loved the World that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life."
Jesus Christ"God made everything out of nothing, but the nothingness shows through."
Paul Valery"Rivers, ponds, lakes and streams - they all have different names, but they all contain water. Just as religions do - they all contain truths."
Muhammad Ali"Morality is of the highest importance - but for us, not for God."
Albert Einstein"Just as a candle cannot burn without fire, men cannot live without a spiritual life."
Buddha"Worship means reverence and humility it means revering your real self and humbling delusions."
Bodhidharma"The God who existed before any religion counts on you to make the oneness of the human family known and celebrated."
Desmond Tutu"Religion without morality is a superstition and a curse, and morality without religion is impossible."
Mark Hopkins"Human beings must be known to be loved; but Divine beings must be loved to be known."
Blaise Pascal"There is nothing evil save that which perverts the mind and shackles the conscience."
Saint Ambrose"Only a god can save us."
Martin Heidegger"Let your religion be less of a theory and more of a love affair."
Gilbert K. Chesterton"Religion is not a department of life; it is something that enters into the whole of it."
Alan Watts"Every man, either to his terror or consolation, has some sense of religion."
Heinrich Heine"Religion is more like response to a friend than it is like obedience to an expert."
Austin Farrer"This is God's world, not Satan's. Christians are the lawful heirs, not non-Christians."
Gary North"There must be freedom for all to live, to think, to worship, no book, no avenue must be closed."
James Larkin"Work out your own salvation. Do not depend on others."
Buddha"Since many of you do not belong to the Catholic Church and others are non-believers, from the bottom of my heart I give this silent blessing to each and every one of you, respecting the conscience of each one of you but knowing that each one of you is a child of God."
Pope Francis"All religions must be tolerated... for every man must get to heaven in his own way."
Epictetus"I think you can judge from somebody's actions a kind of a stability and sense of purpose perhaps created by strong religious roots. I mean, there's a certain patience, a certain discipline, I think, that religion helps you achieve."
George W. Bush"But aesthetics is not religion, and the origins of religion lie somewhere completely different. They lie anyway, these roses smell too sweet and the deep roar of the breaking waves is too splendid, to do justice to such weighty matters now."
Rudolf Otto"I wasn't raised with a specific religion. I wasn't raised to judge people in any way."
Kristin Kreuk"Science, like art, religion, commerce, warfare, and even sleep, is based on presuppositions."
Gregory Bateson"I'm not into organized religion. I'm into believing in a higher source of creation, realizing we're all just part of nature."
Neil Young"The three great elements of modern civilization, Gun powder, Printing, and the Protestant religion."
Thomas Carlyle"Worship is a way of seeing the world in the light of God."
Abraham Joshua Heschel"The Bible is worth all the other books which have ever been printed."
Patrick Henry"It is easy to talk on religion, but difficult to practice it."
Ramakrishna"Recounting of a life story, a mind thinking aloud leads one inevitably to the consideration of problems which are no longer psychological but spiritual."
Paul Tournier"My life was changed in one breath from God."
Donna Summer"To the first class belong the Gospels and Acts; to the second, the Epistles; to the third, the Revelation."
Philip Schaff"Myself, first of all, I am a Jew. And that is the most important thing for me."
Ariel Sharon"A just laicism allows religious freedom. The state does not impose religion but rather gives space to religions with a responsibility toward civil society, and therefore it allows these religions to be factors in building up society."
Pope Benedict XVI"Many good sayings are to be found in holy books, but merely reading them will not make one religious."
Ramakrishna"Krishna children were taught that in the spiritual world there were no parents, only souls and hence this justified their being kept out of view from others, cloistered in separate buildings and sheltered from the evil material world."
Mary Garden"Jesus does not give recipes that show the way to God as other teachers of religion do. He is himself the way."
Karl Barth"We must seek the loving-kindness of God in all the breadth and open-air of common life."
George A. Smith"I wasn't brought up with any religion at all. At school and in my early 20s, I read every religious text I could get my hands on - Buddhist scriptures, Hindu texts, the Qur'an, and the Bible. I wanted to feel like something made sense to me, that there was something sacred I could feel aligned with."
Jennifer Connelly"Religion and art spring from the same root and are close kin. Economics and art are strangers."
Nathaniel Hawthorne"Unfortunately, of course, guilt is an artifact of agricultural-age religion and is designed specifically to prevent humans from thinking and operating on a collective level."
Timothy Morton"Secularism is categorically not saying that the religious may not speak out publicly or have a say in public life. It is about saying that religion alone should not confer a privileged say in public life, or greater influence on it. It really is as simple as that."
Richard Dawkins"As Juan Gabriel, music is my religion, and mariachi is my devotion. And my songs are my prayers."
Juan Gabriel"The framers of our Constitution meant we were to have freedom of religion, not freedom from religion."
Billy Graham"Religion is about turning untested belief into unshakable truth through the power of institutions and the passage of time."
Richard Dawkins"Our Father and Our God, unto thee, O Lord we lift our souls."
William Pennington"The Sabbath is a weekly cathedral raised up in my dining room, in my family, in my heart."
Anita Diament"There seems to be a terrible misunderstanding on the part of a great many people to the effect that when you cease to believe you may cease to behave."
Louis Kronenberger"The marvel of the Bhagavad-Gita is its truly beautiful revelation of life's wisdom which enables philosophy to blossom into religion."
Hermann Hesse"I am a spiritual person in an eastern religion kind of way. I learned that happiness for all of us is a switch that you flick in your brain. It doesn't have anything to do with getting a new house, a new car, a new girlfriend, or a new pair of shoes. Our culture is very much about that; we are never happy with what we have today."
Tom Ford"We are always on the anvil; by trials God is shaping us for higher things."
Henry Ward Beecher"Wonder is the basis of worship."
Thomas Carlyle"I know the Bible is inspired because it inspires me."
Dwight L. Moody"There's no religion but sex and music."
Sting"The greatest tragedy in mankind's entire history may be the hijacking of morality by religion."
Arthur C. Clarke"Religion and gods and beliefs - for me, it all comes down to your brother. And your brother might be the brother in your family, or it might be the guy next to you in the foxhole - it's about human connections."
Eric Kripke"The difference between a cult and a religion, of course, lies in extremity."
Benjamin Wittes"Religion is capable of driving people to such dangerous folly that faith seems to me to qualify as a kind of mental illness."
Richard Dawkins"Violence against women in all its forms is a human rights violation. It's not something that any culture, religion or tradition propagates."
Michelle Bachelet"I have a great identification with Judaism as a religion and as a culture, and all the values that created such a great history, and the Jewish contribution to the betterment of all humanity."
Jackie Mason"I don't like religion."
Miriam Margolyes"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."
Clive Bell"To see clearly is poetry, prophecy and religion all in one."
John Ruskin"My mom's a Catholic, and my dad's a Jew, and they didn't want anything to do with anything."
Isabelle Huppert"One act of obedience is better than one hundred sermons."
Dietrich Bonhoeffer"Let us not seek to bring religion to others, but let us endeavor to live it ourselves."
Paul Tournier"This is all the inheritance I give to my dear family. The religion of Christ will give them one which will make them rich indeed."
Patrick Henry"I believe in a religion that believes in freedom. Any time I have to accept a religion that won't let me fight a battle for my people, I say to hell with that religion."
Malcolm X"I don't have a religion. I believe in a God. I don't know what it looks like but it's MY god. My own interpretation of the supernatural."
Jennifer Aniston"Beauty has no boundaries, no rules, no colors. Beauty is like a religion. You can include everything inside it."
Alessandro Michele"Religion is all-too-often a refuge for scoundrels."
Neal Boortz"Commodities such as gold and silver have a world market that transcends national borders, politics, religions, and race. A person may not like someone else's religion, but he'll accept his gold."
Robert Kiyosaki"No religion has mandated killing others as a requirement for its sustenance or promotion."
A. P. J. Abdul Kalam"I think religion is a mistake - I'm exhausted by its self-righteousness. I think atheists should start screaming for attention like religious folks do."
Bjork"Young people all over the world are very frustrated. They are very disillusioned. Many of them are turning their backs on religion. They are walking away from the faith of their parents, and most of this is because religion has failed them."
Myles Munroe"Politicians use religion, and they get their troops riled up with religion."
Daron Malakian"I don't care what your religion is, as long as it doesn't chastise anybody that's not part of it."
Jon Gries"If you reject the food, ignore the customs, fear the religion and avoid the people, you might better stay at home."
James A. Michener"Religion is a very delicate subject in Lebanon. You have to know how to say things in a very delicate way in order to be accepted."
Nadine Labaki"And I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in showing that religion and Government will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together."
James Madison"You must learn to exist with no religion, no country, no allies. You must learn to live alone in silence."
William S. Burroughs"To gather with God's people in united adoration of the Father is as necessary to the Christian life as prayer."
Martin Luther"Earth changes, but thy soul and God stand sure."
Robert Browning"Muslims must believe that all power, success and victory comes from God alone."
Abu Bakar Bashir"Prayer is the spirit speaking truth to Truth."
Philip James Bailey"I cannot adequately express the horror I feel for a man who can be so base as to veil his hypocrisy under the cloak of religion, and state the base falsehood he has done."
James K. Polk"Islam is a religion. It is not an ideology. For a Muslim, there is no such thing as to be against modernity. Why should a Muslim not be a modern person? I, as a Muslim, fulfill all the requirements of my religion, and I live in a democratic, social state."
Recep Tayyip Erdogan"When man fell from grace, he lost a kingdom, not a religion. He lost dominion over the earth; He did not lose Heaven. Therefore, mankind's search is not for a religion or for Heaven but for his kingdom."
Myles Munroe"Like, my feelings on religion are starting to morph. I'm still very much an atheist, except that I don't necessarily see religion as being a bad thing. So, that's a weird thing that I'm struggling with that seems to be offending both atheists and people that are religious."
Patton Oswalt"I'm literally fighting for the equality of every man, woman and child regardless of race, religion, color, creed, and sexual orientation and here to spread a message of peace, love, and positivity."
Logic"I'm an atheist. I don't have a religion."
Aleister Black"My idea of religion is we are supposed to bring people together. We are not supposed to judge other people."
Charles Barkley"Religion is the belief in an ever-living God, that is, in a Divine Mind and Will ruling the Universe and holding moral relations with mankind."
James Martineau"Hobbies of any kind are boring except to people who have the same hobby. This is also true of religion, although you will not find me saying so in print."
Dave Barry"People can be only divided into good or bad; their race, religion, nationality don't matter."
Irena Sendler"People gravitate to religion to feel a connection to the underlying meaning of everything. Well, as a scientist, you're always looking for the underlying meaning, and that, to me, is such a spiritual life, I wish people would open themselves up to that wonder."
Carolyn Porco"Religion has given me a new drive in life. Life feels a lot easier than it ever did before."
Wesley Sneijder"Religion is the frozen thought of man out of which they build temples."
Jiddu Krishnamurti"To fill a world with religion, or religions of the Abrahamic kind, is like littering the streets with loaded guns. Do not be surprised if they are used."
Richard Dawkins"I'm fascinated by religion, but I'm not particularly religious."
Mika"We want, as the Saudi people, to enjoy the coming days and concentrate on developing our society and developing ourselves as individuals and families while retaining our religion and customs."
Mohammad bin Salman"It doesn't matter what color, sex, religion, age, sexual orientation, etc., everyone should have the same freedoms and liberties."
Lance Bass"I was brought up a Muslim and I respect the religion I was born into, but I don't practise it. However, I do believe in thanking God for my happy life."
Laila Rouass"Whether one believes in a religion or not, and whether one believes in rebirth or not, there isn't anyone who doesn't appreciate kindness and compassion."
Dalai Lama"If, then, you are looking for the way by which you should go, take Christ, because He Himself is the way."
Thomas Aquinas"Religion is everywhere. There are no human societies without it, whether they acknowledge it as a religion or not."
Octavia E. Butler"Anti-religious sneers are a hallmark of perpetual adolescents."
Camille Paglia"There should be no discrimination against languages people speak, skin color, or religion."
Malala Yousafzai"There is no higher religion than human service. To work for the common good is the greatest creed."
Woodrow Wilson"I think I'm a humanist. I believe all humans should have equal rights to live, express, flourish, love and dissent, irrespective of their gender, caste, class, socio-economic strata, disabilities, political stance, religion or faith."
Sayani Gupta"Be strong, believe in freedom and in God, love yourself, understand your sexuality, have a sense of humor, masturbate, don't judge people by their religion, color or sexual habits, love life and your family."
Madonna Ciccone"Freedom of religion does not entitle your religion to have a privileged position within the public sphere."
Gad Saad"I had been working on this series called 'Everything Dies,' and it was basically me doing non-fiction essays, responding to religion and stuff like that, and I really got into this ideas of telling factual stories via comics."
Box Brown"I can't understand people calling themselves religious and being hateful. If a preacher is preaching hate, to fear God that's not religion, that's not helping humanity, that's organizing an army to defeat somebody."
Mojo Nixon"In Britain, politicians who openly discuss their spirituality are about as welcome as Jehovah' s Witnesses on the doorstep, and the British associate the mixture of politics and religion as a heady cocktail best reserved for the mass irrationality of Northern Ireland, Iran, Kashmir, and the Middle East."
Gavin Esler"The object of religion is the imagination, that deep and inexhaustible font of our understanding and symbolizing our deepest possibilities."
Eugene Kennedy"Religion is dangerous because it allows human beings who don't have all the answers to think that they do."
Bill Maher"All religion, my friend, is simply evolved out of fraud, fear, greed, imagination, and poetry."
Edgar Allan Poe"We have enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another."
Jonathan Swift"Religion is such a path with people."
Travis Fimmel"God is a metaphor for that which transcends all levels of intellectual thought. It's as simple as that."
Joseph Campbell"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"Even though you can't expect to defeat the absurdity of the world, you must make the attempt. That's morality, that's religion, that's art, that's life."
Phil Ochs"We can live without religion and meditation, but we cannot survive without human affection."
Dalai Lama"One may fall in love anytime and with anyone. One does not decide that based on caste, religion or gender."
Dutee Chand"I find it unnecessary, useless and frankly a bit unnecessary to get into all sorts of debates over President Obama's religion or the authenticity of his birth. I know for some people that it is an obsession. It is not with me."
Mike Huckabee"I'm in favour of religion as a tamer of arrogance. For a Greek Orthodox, the idea of God as creator outside the human is not God in God's terms. My God isn't the God of George Bush."
Nassim Nicholas Taleb"I was born and raised Catholic, so it's in my blood. I don't go to church... I was born and raised Catholic, which is about the extent of my religion. My parents made one request: that I have my first Holy Communion."
Tom Araya"I'm not a religious person, and I'm not too interested in being a part of a religion, but I do like having some sort of communal gathering, and having some sense of peoples."
Ian MacKaye"The Americans combine the notions of religion and liberty so intimately in their minds, that it is impossible to make them conceive of one without the other."
Alexis de Tocqueville"Modern bodybuilding is ritual, religion, sport, art, and science, awash in Western chemistry and mathematics. Defying nature, it surpasses it."
Camille Paglia"Religion is very important to me. I respect the rules of Islam, and I pray five times a day, always."
Sadio Mane"If religion has given birth to all that is essential in society, it is because the idea of society is the soul of religion."
Emile Durkheim"Religion survives because it answers three questions that every reflective person must ask. Who am I? Why am I here? How then shall I live?"
Jonathan Sacks"Most people don't want to talk about politics and religion. They say, 'Let's talk about something else.'"
Prince"All theory of modernity in sociology suggests that the more modernity there is, the less religion. In my theory we can realize that this is wrong: atheism is only one belief system among many."
Ulrich Beck"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."
Mustafa Kemal Ataturk"Terrorism has no nationality or religion."
Vladimir Putin"Terrorism should be seen in the light of the country's security and not from the narrow perspective of caste, creed and religion."
Oscar Fernandes"Religion is for people who are scared to go to hell. Spirituality is for people who have already been there."
Bonnie Raitt"I'm a practicing Christian - and I'm going to keep practicing till I get it right - but I don't feel everyone has to practice the same religion that I do. You have a right to worship who you choose and how you choose to."
Jane Elliot"I found enormous opposition to my religion. It's like if you want to strengthen your biceps, you lift heavy weight, as heavy as you can handle, and work your muscles against resistance until it grows strong. I had to do that with my religion."
Ricardo Montalban"My religion would be a gentle faith that believed in the sacredness of leisure. Napping as a form of prayer."
Garrison Keillor"I have an everyday religion that works for me. Love yourself first, and everything else falls into line."
Lucille Ball"After all, is football a game or a religion?"
Howard Cosell"Socialism is the religion people get when they lose their religion."
Richard John Neuhaus"I consider myself a religious person. God is something very personal with me and I don't flaunt religion in conversation with others."
Richard Chamberlain"Many of us saw religion as harmless nonsense. Beliefs might lack all supporting evidence but, we thought, if people needed a crutch for consolation, where's the harm? September 11th changed all that."
Richard Dawkins"Formerly, when religion was strong and science weak, men mistook magic for medicine; now, when science is strong and religion weak, men mistake medicine for magic."
Thomas Szasz"It's wonderful to climb the liquid mountains of the sky. Behind me and before me is God and I have no fears."
Helen Keller"When we blindly adopt a religion, a political system, a literary dogma, we become automatons. We cease to grow."
Anais Nin"I don't believe in God but I'm very interested in her."
Arthur C. Clarke"Just as the soul fills the body, so God fills the world. Just as the soul bears the body, so God endures the world. Just as the soul sees but is not seen, so God sees but is not seen. Just as the soul feeds the body, so God gives food to the world."
Marcus Tullius Cicero"I'm fascinated by the business of belief, obviously, because it's so ever present with humanity anyway. And, you know, when you have science, which constantly talks of proofs, you have religion, which constantly talks of beliefs and faith and so on."
John Hurt"God requireth not a uniformity of religion."
Roger Williams"Religion is a temper, not a pursuit."
Harriet Martineau"To criticize a person for their race is manifestly irrational and ridiculous, but to criticize their religion, that is a right. That is a freedom."
Rowan Atkinson"Patriotism is a kind of religion; it is the egg from which wars are hatched."
Guy de Maupassant"When it is a question of money, everybody is of the same religion."
Voltaire"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"The world is divided into men who have wit and no religion and men who have religion and no wit."
Avicenna"I wasn't really too hyped on religion. I don't really believe in a religion like that. I just believe that there is a God. There's just somebody up there that listens to me, and they can show me better if I talk to them and build a relationship with them."
NLE Choppa"A little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion."
Francis Bacon"A critic is a eunuch working in a harem. He watches it, but he knows he can't do it. Critics very often are failed writers and, like failed priests, they hate religion."
Howard Fast"Religion is something left over from the infancy of our intelligence, it will fade away as we adopt reason and science as our guidelines."
Bertrand Russell"Religion is the recognition of all our duties as divine commands."
Immanuel Kant"Religion and slavery are incompatible."
B. R. Ambedkar"If one has the answers to all the questions - that is the proof that God is not with him. It means that he is a false prophet using religion for himself. The great leaders of the people of God, like Moses, have always left room for doubt. You must leave room for the Lord, not for our certainties; we must be humble."
Pope Francis"I am against religion because it teaches us to be satisfied with not understanding the world."
Richard Dawkins"I'm still very much an atheist, except that I don't necessarily see religion as being a bad thing. So, that's a weird thing that I'm struggling with that seems to be offending both atheists and people that are religious."
Patton Oswalt"We live in a society that wants to label you with a color, sexuality, religion, or ethnicity. It divides us, but it also allows us to find pride in our identity."
Logan Browning"When I have a terrible need of - shall I say the word - religion. Then I go out and paint the stars."
Vincent Van Gogh"I think that religion is incredibly cruel, and I think that my biggest problem with being vegetarian, usually, is other vegetarians."
Devin Townsend"The same thing which is now called Christian religion existed among the ancients. They have begun to call 'Christian' the true religion which existed before."
Saint Augustine"What makes us different? Well, besides our skin color and our nationality and maybe our religion, nothing. We all want the same thing, we all want to have success in America."
Herm Edwards"I am an Anglo-Catholic in religion, a classicist in literature and a royalist in politics."
T. S. Eliot"Love and business and family and religion and art and patriotism are nothing but shadows of words when a man's starving!"
O. Henry"I don't think that people accept the fact that life doesn't make sense. I think it makes people terribly uncomfortable. It seems like religion and myth were invented against that, trying to make sense out of it."
David Lynch"Communism is a religion that is inspired, directed and motivated by the Devil himself who has declared war against Almighty God."
Billy Graham"We are a nation of immigrants, a quilt of many colors, and we've managed over more than two centuries to create a way of life that allows for a reasonable degree of upward mobility, that prizes individual liberty, promotes freedom of religion and genuinely values equal rights for all citizens."
Jay Parini"Being religious means asking passionately the question of the meaning of our existence and being willing to receive answers, even if the answers hurt."
Paul Tillich"Superstition is to religion what astrology is to astronomy the mad daughter of a wise mother. These daughters have too long dominated the earth."
Voltaire"Fascism is a religion. The twentieth century will be known in history as the century of Fascism."
Benito Mussolini"There is only one religion, though there are a hundred versions of it."
George Bernard Shaw"Organized religion is a sham and a crutch for weak-minded people who need strength in numbers. It tells people to go out and stick their noses in other people's business."
Jesse Ventura"Fashion is almost like a religion, for me at least."
ASAP Rocky"It is my goal to love everyone. I hate no one. Regardless of their race, religion, their proclivities, the desire of their heart and how they want to live their life and the decisions that they make. I can even respect people's decisions and lifestyle choices just as I hope they have the courtesy to respect my decisions and my choices."
Kirk Cameron"In Iran, there is no freedom of the press, no freedom of speech, no independent judiciary, no free elections. There is no freedom of religion - not even for Shiites, who are forced by Iran's theocracy to adhere to one narrow set of official rules."
Elliott Abrams"In spite of the huge diversity in Malaysia in terms of religion, culture, race, ethnicity and so forth, we've really gone very far in developing this country."
Najib Razak"Diversity of thought and culture and religion and ideas has been the strength of America."
Gary Locke"Sex is the mysticism of materialism and the only possible religion in a materialistic society."
Malcolm Muggeridge"Christianity began as a religion of the poor and dispossessed - farmers, fishermen, Bedouin shepherds. There's a great lure to that kind of simplicity and rigor - the discipline, the call to action."
Camille Paglia"If you don't like the word 'religion,' you can replace it with 'ideology' - it's largely the same thing. At the heart of both religion and ideology is the question of authority and where authority is coming from."
Yuval Noah Harari"I say quite deliberately that the Christian religion, as organized in its Churches, has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world."
Bertrand Russell"We have enslaved the rest of the animal creation, and have treated our distant cousins in fur and feathers so badly that beyond doubt, if they were able to formulate a religion, they would depict the Devil in human form."
William Inge"For the record, I don't worship the devil. I just hate religion."
Tyler, The Creator"Religion is the organization of spirituality into something that became the hand maiden of conquerors. Nearly all religions were brought to people and imposed on people by conquerors, and used as the framework to control their minds."
John Henrik Clarke"My great religion is a belief in the blood, the flesh, as being wiser than the intellect. We can go wrong in our minds. But what our blood feels and believes and says, is always true. The intellect is only a bit and a bridle."
D. H. Lawrence"Nothing defines humans better than their willingness to do irrational things in the pursuit of phenomenally unlikely payoffs. This is the principle behind lotteries, dating, and religion."
Scott Adams"Religion brings to man an inner strength, spiritual light, and ineffable peace."
Alexis Carrel"My sense of religion is Einstein's sense of relativity. I don't believe in God. I believe that energy never dies. So the possibility exists that you might be breathing in some other form of Moses or Buddha or Muhammad or Bobby Kennedy or Roosevelt or Martin Luther King or Jesus."
Mandy Patinkin"My theory is if you have a religion, it's a good one. Because some people don't have any at all."
Tom T. Hall"Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ can be bolstered as we learn about Him and live our religion. The doctrine of Jesus Christ was designed by the Lord to help us increase our faith."
Russell M. Nelson"My social philosophy may be said to be enshrined in three words: liberty, equality and fraternity. Let no one, however, say that I have borrowed by philosophy from the French Revolution. I have not. My philosophy has roots in religion and not in political science. I have derived them from the teachings of my Master, the Buddha."
B. R. Ambedkar"I believe in mysticism, with an interior goal, and you are your own temple and your own priest. I don't believe anymore in religions, because you see today there are religious wars, prejudice, false morals, and the woman is despised. Religion is too old now; it's from another century, it's not for today."
Alejandro Jodorowsky"The audience that I try to reach are members of what I call the church alumni association. Now they are people who have not found in institutional religion a God big enough to be God for their world."
John Shelby Spong"Religion without humanity is very poor human stuff."
Sojourner Truth"Those who say religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion is."
Mahatma Gandhi"More and more people care about religious tolerance as fewer and fewer care about religion."
Alexander Chase"Religion kept some of my relatives alive, because it was all they had. If they hadn't had some hope of heaven, some companionship in Jesus, they probably would have committed suicide, their lives were so hellish."
Octavia E. Butler"True religion is real living; living with all one's soul, with all one's goodness and righteousness."
Albert Einstein"I was always respectful of people who were deeply religious because I always felt that if they gave themselves to it, then it had to be important to them. But if you can go through life without it, that's OK, too. It's whatever suits you."
Clint Eastwood"The glory of Christianity is to conquer by forgiveness."
William Blake"It is only when men begin to worship that they begin to grow."
Calvin Coolidge"How can you tell when a political ideology has become the equivalent of a religion?"
Andrew Sullivan"I have a strong belief in God... I find religion to be a very personal thing... I am also very spiritual."
Sela Ward"My concern with religion is that it allows us by the millions to believe what only lunatics or idiots could believe on their own. That's not to say that all religious people are lunatics or idiots. It's anything but that."
Sam Harris"I'm not really any religion. I still study with Jehovah's Witnesses, so I say I'm Apostolic Pentecostal Jehovah's Witness Seventh-Day Adventist Jew."
Tyka Nelson"One man's cult is another man's religion."
Annie Parisse"I've always felt like there are certain politicians that wear their religion on their sleeve in a way that you almost feel is disingenuous. I think that your faith has to be first personal. I struggle with those people that preach something and go back behind closed doors and live differently."
Nikki Haley"Do not neglect secret prayer, for it is the soul of religion."
Ellen G. White"Religion is love; in no case is it logic."
Beatrice Webb"Instead of being presented with stereotypes by age, sex, color, class, or religion, children must have the opportunity to learn that within each range, some people are loathsome and some are delightful."
Margaret Mead"People should not be voting based on caste, religion, money, or liquor but real issues that affect their lives."
Atishi"Religion is very important to me. One of my aims is to try to show that you can have faith and play cricket. There can be a lot of negativity and misunderstanding of Islam."
Moeen Ali"I think of religion as man's attempt to reach God, and you can't do that."
Anne Graham Lotz"Religion is never the problem; it's the people who use it to gain power."
Julian Casablancas"I am an atheist, and I believe that religion should not be in the classrooms; it has to be in the churches. In the classrooms, you have to form citizenship, not people with religious beliefs, that corresponds to the private sphere."
Pedro Sanchez"I don't go by my caste, creed or religion. My works speak for me."
Shashi Tharoor"Religion is a strange, wonderful thing. More crimes have been committed in the name of righteousness than any other notion."
Tom T. Hall"My philosophy is to do the best you can for somebody. Help. It's not just what do you for yourself. It's how you treat people decently. The golden rule. There isn't big anything better than the golden rule. It's in every major religion in one language or another."
Art Linkletter"That's what stress management is about, that's what psychotherapy is about, finding religion, or finding your loved one or your hobby - any of those, they give you more outlets, more of a sense of control, more of a sense of predictability, of social support. They give you the means to psychologically finesse ambiguous outside reality."
Robert Sapolsky"I don't subscribe to organised religion. I've travelled enough to see that adherents of organised religion often attack adherents of other religions."
William T. Vollmann"I still pray a lot. I still believe in God. I just don't believe in any set religion."
Naomie Harris"I don't practise any religion but I am deeply interested in the answers that mankind has come up with to explain the human situation."
Simon Callow"A cult is a religion with no political power."
Tom Wolfe"I grew up in a Jewish family, and we have raised our children in a Jewish tradition. Religion gives a framework for moral enquiry in young minds and points us to questions beyond the material."
Michael Sandel"I was sort of born into a Subud cult that has ties to Islam and Indonesia and Middle Eastern spiritualism. My parents were kind of trial-and-error when it came to religion."
Sufjan Stevens"I do not know how to teach philosophy without becoming a disturber of established religion."
Baruch Spinoza"Preach the Gospel at all times and when necessary use words."
Unknown"It is wonderful how much time good people spend fighting the devil. If they would only expend the same amount of energy loving their fellow men, the devil would die in his own tracks of ennui."
Helen Keller"Religion in its humility restores man to his only dignity, the courage to live by grace."
George Santayana"The truth is nobody was a Muslim until Public Enemy came out. Then, everybody was Muslim this and Muslim that. It's a bandwagon thing. Islam is a way of life... it's a religion. It's not just something you put on a record. -KRS"
One"I'm Christian. Growing up in Ethiopia, it's half-Christian and half-Muslim. You grow up with Muslim kids. I'm very much aware of their religion."
Liya Kebede"God did not intend religion to be an exercise club."
Naguib Mahfouz"Man is the religious animal. He is the only one that's got true religion, several of them."
Hal Holbrook"My religion is based on truth and non-violence. Truth is my God. Non-violence is the means of realising Him."
Mahatma Gandhi"Surely the day will come when color means nothing more than the skin tone, when religion is seen uniquely as a way to speak one's soul, when birth places have the weight of a throw of the dice and all men are born free, when understanding breeds love and brotherhood."
Josephine Baker"Every theistic religion, including Catholicism, Mainline Protestantism, Judaism, Mormonism, and Islam, has traditionally held homosexual congress in moral opprobrium."
Michael J. Knowles"To fall in love is to create a religion that has a fallible god."
Jorge Luis Borges"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 man and beast, it is all a sham."
Anna Sewell"As women, we may not be a minority, but there is a bond that we all share. It is not a bond of geography. Or religion. Or culture. It is a bond of shared experience - experiences that only women go through and struggles that only women face."
Amal Clooney"We live in an age that stresses personal goals, careers, happiness, work and religion. The emphasis is on the individual and how best that individual can satisfy himself."
Mother Angelica"If you have a particular faith or religion, that is good. But you can survive without it."
Dalai Lama"The trouble with many men is that they have got just enough religion to make them miserable. If there is not joy in religion, you have got a leak in your religion."
Billy Sunday"The first canon of my religion is that you shouldn't try to convince anybody to believe like you do."
Leon Russell"I'm not religious. I was as a child, and like lots of people, I suppose, rapidly became very disillusioned with the whole thing. I also feel that organised religion has caused far more problems than it has solved."
Natascha McElhone"Religion is an illusion and it derives its strength from the fact that it falls in with our instinctual desires."
Sigmund Freud"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"People tell you the world looks a certain way. Parents tell you how to think. Schools tell you how to think. TV. Religion. And then at a certain point, if you're lucky, you realize you can make up your own mind. Nobody sets the rules but you. You can design your own life. -Carrie"
Anne Moss"Animals have come to mean so much in our lives. We live in a fragmented and disconnected culture. Politics are ugly, religion is struggling, technology is stressful, and the economy is unfortunate. What's one thing that we have in our lives that we can depend on? A dog or a cat loving us unconditionally, every day, very faithfully."
Jon Katz"Love is my religion - I could die for it."
John Keats"The major civilizing force in the world is not religion, it is sex."
Hugh Hefner"The truth is that killing innocent people is always wrong - and no argument or excuse, no matter how deeply believed, can ever make it right. No religion on earth condones the killing of innocent people; no faith tradition tolerates the random killing of our brothers and sisters on this earth."
Feisal Abdul Rauf"Parents and schools should place great emphasis on the idea that it is all right to be different. Racism and all the other 'isms' grow from primitive tribalism, the instinctive hostility against those of another tribe, race, religion, nationality, class or whatever. You are a lucky child if your parents taught you to accept diversity."
Roger Ebert"I want young people to know that they can belong - whatever your culture, your religion, your sexuality - that you can live life how you want to live it and feel comfortable how you are."
Jessie J"Religion often is misused for purely power-political goals, including war."
Hans Kung"I took religion much too seriously, however, and its overall effect was depressing. I would have really liked to discard it, but somehow I couldn't."
Jack Dee"The religion of the name of the seas will triumph against the sect of the son of Adaluncatif; The obstinate, lamented sect will be fearful of the two wounded by Aleph and Aleph."
Nostradamus"Religion is the last refuge of human savagery."
Alfred North Whitehead"The true meaning of religion is thus, not simply morality, but morality touched by emotion."
Matthew Arnold"The idea that religion and politics don't mix was invented by the Devil to keep Christians from running their own country."
Jerry Falwell"Wherever men and women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must - at that moment - become the center of the universe."
Elie Wiesel"God is to be worshipped as the one beloved, dearer than everything in this and next life."
Swami Vivekananda"Christianity helps us face the music even when we don't like the tune."
Phillips Brooks"My country is the world, and my religion is to do good."
Thomas Paine"If the grandfather of the grandfather of Jesus had known what was hidden within him, he would have stood humble and awe-struck before his soul."
Khalil Gibran"Religion is essentially the art and the theory of the remaking of man. Man is not a finished creation."
Edmund Burke"The Bible is the fountain of truth."
Joseph Franklin Rutherford"Religion creates community, community creates altruism and altruism turns us away from self and towards the common good... There is something about the tenor of relationships within a religious community that makes it the best tutorial in citizenship and good neighborliness."
Jonathan Sacks"I learned early on, stay away from politics, stay away from religion and don't talk about sports. Those three right there will get you in trouble."
Gabriel Iglesias"As with the Christian religion, the worst advertisement for Socialism is its adherents."
George Orwell"The main object of religion is not to get a man into heaven, but to get heaven into him."
Thomas Hardy"If religion were true, its followers would not try to bludgeon their young into an artificial conformity; but would merely insist on their unbending quest for truth, irrespective of artificial backgrounds or practical consequences."
H. P. Lovecraft"I'm a Christian, but I don't believe in religion or anything like that."
Vanilla Ice"To me, religion is an agreement between a group of people about what God is. Spirituality is a one-on-one relationship."
Steve Earle"I come from a Catholic religion, but I'm not Catholic."
Monica Bellucci"Where knowledge ends, religion begins."
Benjamin Disraeli"The Church controlled so much in Ireland for so long. I'm not going to get into whether or not religion per se is a bad thing, but my point is the political aspect in Ireland was way out of kilter, and it wasn't right."
Roisin Murphy"I don't do politics, I don't do religion, I don't do ethnic jokes."
Bill Engvall"All these walls that keep us from loving each other as one family or one race - racism, religion, where we grew up, whatever, class, socioeconomic - what makes us be so selfish and prideful, what keeps us from wanting to help the next man, what makes us be so focused on a personal legacy as opposed to the entire legacy of a race."
Kanye West"Cinema is my religion. It is a way to make people sensitive, through emotions. To make them feel, experience empathy. People are touched and act ethically when they are emotionally touched."
Bruno Dumont"Women are oppressed in the east, in the west, in the south, in the north. Women are oppressed inside, outside home, a woman is oppressed in religion, she is oppressed outside religion."
Taslima Nasrin"If faith is lost, there is no security and there is no life for him who does not adhere to religion."
Muhammad Iqbal"I know too much about religion to be religious, so to speak, and I am not that stupid, either."
Varg Vikernes"We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart."
H. L. Mencken"What brings you closer to God is being in service to others. I think any religion or spiritual way of life will indicate that service to others will lead to a connection with a higher power. -Steve"
O"Religion is the solid basis of good morals; therefore education should teach the precepts of religion, and the duties of man toward God."
Gouverneur Morris"Religion, in any form, is always interesting to me because of how powerful it is. Not even the religion itself, but to the people that follow it... The effect that it has had on people's minds."
Chino Moreno"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."
Larry Flynt"Religion must completely encircle the spirit of ethical man like his element, and this luminous chaos of divine thoughts and feelings is called enthusiasm."
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel"Factually, the Temple Mount is the precise location of the Temple. It's the holiest place in the world for Jews. It's the third holiest place for Muslims. And we need to respect each others' rights, freedom of religion."
Naftali Bennett"To an honest judge, the alleged marriage between religion and science is a shallow, empty, spin-doctored sham."
Richard Dawkins"Theater is my temple and my religion and my act of faith. Strangers sit in a room together and believe together."
Harvey Fierstein"Religion is the masterpiece of the art of animal training, for it trains people as to how they shall think."
Arthur Schopenhauer"The American free enterprise system is the greatest tool to lift people out of poverty ever created in human history and when applied properly, does not discriminate by race, religion, or skin color."
Markwayne Mullin"Surfing is my religion, if I have one."
Kelly Slater"Religion is just mind control."
George Carlin"I find the whole idea of religion overwhelming and frightening and not for me."
Cody Fern"Religion is like a personal computer. You let people in if you want to... We're all gods. -Jay"
Z"When push comes to shove, it ain't the science that's going to lift you up - it's the belief, the spiritual side of life, that's going to lift you up, no matter what religion you are."
Kirstie Alley"The difference between a saint and a hypocrite is that one lies for his religion, the other by it."
Minna Antrim"India is a country in which every great religion finds a home."
Annie Besant"I was brought up Catholic and know the stench of the Catholic Church. I moved away from religion early, but the impression remains."
Gunter Grass"I believe having religion in your life creates the potential for long-lasting relationships."
Goldie Hawn"I have the highest respect for the concept of 'Advait' - the oneness of all humans - that is central to Indian culture, thought, and religion."
Rajkumar Hirani"Generally speaking, the errors in religion are dangerous; those in philosophy only ridiculous."
David Hume"Religion, as it is understood in the West, does not lead toward progress, and science does not lead toward humanism."
Alija Izetbegovic"I left my husband a year after 9/11. Not because he was an American and I an Egyptian, nothing to do with culture or religion, nothing to do with 9/11. We brought out the worst in each other. But before we separated, we visited N.Y.C. one more time together for a friend's engagement, and we went to pay our respects at the site of the attacks."
Mona Eltahawy"Any time scientists disagree, it's because we have insufficient data. Then we can agree on what kind of data to get; we get the data; and the data solves the problem. Either I'm right, or you're right, or we're both wrong. And we move on. That kind of conflict resolution does not exist in politics or religion."
Neil deGrasse Tyson"It's not surprising, then, they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."
Barack Obama"I don't care what the religion is called; as far as I'm concerned, one God, the God I adhere to, is in charge of all of them."
Charley Pride"The essence of America - that which really unites us - is not ethnicity, or nationality or religion - it is an idea - and what an idea it is: That you can come from humble circumstances and do great things."
Condoleezza Rice"It is a fine thing to establish one's own religion in one's heart, not to be dependent on tradition and second-hand ideals. Life will seem to you, later, not a lesser, but a greater thing."
D. H. Lawrence"Religion is a complex and often contradictory force in our world. It fosters hope and comfort but also doubt and guilt. It creates both community and exclusion. It brings societies together around shared belief and tears them apart through war. However, what unites the faithful, whatever their religion, is the unshakeable force of generosity. -Laura Arrillaga"
Andreessen"I am not interested in the afterlife. Religion is supposed to be about losing your ego, not preserving it eternally in optimum conditions."
Karen Armstrong"Do not imagine that what we have said of the insufficiency of our understanding and of its limited extent is an assertion founded only on the Bible: for philosophers likewise assert the same, and perfectly understand it,- without having regard to any religion or opinion."
Maimonides"Gentleness, self-sacrifice and generosity are the exclusive possession of no one race or religion."
Mahatma Gandhi"Religion works on some people but not on everyone, because it says, 'Stop thinking and accept what I tell you.' That's not valid for people who want to think and reflect."
Abbas Kiarostami"Organized religion: the world's largest pyramid scheme."
Bernard Katz"I'm not really into religion."
Harry Dean Stanton"He who possesses art and science has religion; he who does not possess them, needs religion."
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe"Sadly, in the highest levels of economic thought in government, questions are not tolerated. It is as if we're dealing with the binary thinking of a fundamentalist religion."
Michael Burry"I think the church and the religion right now have a lot more to be worried about than SLAYER."
Kerry King"I've never meditated in my life. I don't practice yoga nor any religion. I'm a tourist on the realm of stillness."
Pico Iyer"The first requisite for the happiness of the people is the abolition of religion."
Karl Marx"'Kol Nidrei' is probably the most important prayer in the Jewish religion. It comes on the evening of Yom Kippur. There are so many different renditions of it."
Itzhak Perlman"My family was Jehovah's Witnesses, which is a really tough religion. It kind of deterred me from religion for a long time. They still practice, but I don't. But I always remained spiritual, and had a belief that there is a God. I'm trying to find my way, you know?"
Ja Rule"Just in terms of allocation of time resources, religion is not very efficient. There's a lot more I could be doing on a Sunday morning."
Bill Gates"I believe in the religion of Islam. I believe in Allah and peace."
Muhammad Ali"I don't normally talk about my religion publicly because I don't want people to associate me and my flaws with this beautiful thing. And I believe it is beautiful if you learn it the right way."
Dave Chappelle"Billions of people don't practice a religion at all."
Richard Gere"Skeptical scrutiny is the means, in both science and religion, by which deep thoughts can be winnowed from deep nonsense."
Carl Sagan"The day is not far off when the economic problem will take the back seat where it belongs, and the arena of the heart and the head will be occupied or reoccupied, by our real problems - the problems of life and of human relations, of creation and behavior and religion."
John Maynard Keynes"Like religion, politics, and family planning, cereal is not a topic to be brought up in public. It's too controversial."
Erma Bombeck"I just think religion is something... It could be a beautiful thing for the individual, but when it becomes organized, that's when religion starts taking a kind of ugly turn to me."
Daron Malakian"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."
Dave Barry"I've never had any religion. I'd prefer it if I did, really. Even as a boy I just couldn't make myself believe."
David Gilmour"The more powerful and original a mind, the more it will incline towards the religion of solitude."
Aldous Huxley"I have my own religion. I'm sort of one-quarter Baptist, one-quarter Catholic, one-quarter Jewish."
Tom T. Hall"Needless to say, oftentimes a 'religion' is not needed to breed extremism. People breed it all by themselves, oftentimes with the subjective morality of modern secularism breeding the worst kind."
Steven Crowder"I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend."
Thomas Jefferson"I'm sickened by all religions. Religion has divided people. I don't think there's any difference between the pope wearing a large hat and parading around with a smoking purse and an African painting his face white and praying to a rock."
Howard Stern"Religion is a huge part of our consciousness. I grew up in the Bible Belt, so it's our mythology. Those are the stories we learn as little kids at Sunday school. I'm not afraid to use the metaphors, because I think the stories are beautiful."
Samuel Ervin Beam"I just have a sense that, you know, I'm curious about what is religion about, you know? Why do some of us still engage it? It's not because it's a set of old beliefs or old ideas. Or even, particularly, the view that this is the only true religion. Many of us no longer accept those views."
Elaine Pagels"All human beings have an innate need to hear and tell stories and to have a story to live by. religion, whatever else it has done, has provided one of the main ways of meeting this abiding need."
Harvey Cox"The attitude is we live and let live. This is actually an amazing change in values in a rather short time and it's an example of freedom from religion."
Tom Wolfe"I count religion but a childish toy, and hold there is no sin but ignorance."
Christopher Marlowe"Religion has nothing to do with God. It's a fundamental attitude of human beings, who ask about the origins of life and what happens after death. For many, the answer is a personal god. In my opinion, it's religion that produces God, not the other way round."
Umberto Eco"I think regardless of what your religion is or what you believe, you try to treat people in a positive way, and that's all you can do in life."
Scott Eastwood"Behaving morally because of a hope of reward or a fear of punishment is not morality. Morality is not bribery or threats. Religion is bribery and threats. Humans have morality. We don't need religion."
Penn Jillette"You are free; you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other place or worship in this State of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed - that has nothing to do with the business of the State."
Muhammad Ali Jinnah"Religion theme aside, most of the time I'm in some sort of comedy and I'm a straight man and it's really just, let's wind this guy up and see him explode."
Colin Hanks"A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other hand, they do less easily move against him, believing that he has the gods on his side."
Aristotle"My whole life has been movies and religion. That's it. Nothing else."
Martin Scorsese"We first fought the heathens in the name of religion, then Communism, and now in the name of drugs and terrorism. Our excuses for global domination always change."
Serj Tankian"If there is a God, atheism must seem to Him as less of an insult than religion."
Edmond de Goncourt"The essence of religion consists in the feeling of an absolute dependence."
Friedrich Schleiermacher"I'm not a big fan of religion for that reason. But I am a true believer in God, and I have great faith, and I think that a spiritual connection with something is a really important part of our experience. That doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the church."
Shaun Cassidy"Music is my religion."
Jimi Hendrix"I have no religion, but I can't escape being extremely Jewish ethnically - that is, culturally. In other words, I'm not religious, but I worry and I'm neurotic. And I'm very good with money."
Sarah Silverman"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."
Lord Hailsham"The Christian religion, though scattered and abroad will in the end gather itself together at the foot of the cross."
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe"No matter the nationality, no matter the religion, no matter the ethnic background, America brings out the best in people."
Arnold Schwarzenegger"I'm interested in spirituality and in religion and our relationship to the divine."
Giancarlo Esposito"Religion is a very sensitive subject and reason for wars all over the world."
Yolanda Hadid"I used to think religion was just more of the same thing. Dump responsibility on the big guy. Now I see an importance in that. It's a relief to accept that not everything is under your control."
Barbara Kingsolver"The Grateful Dead are our religion. This is a religion that doesn't pay homage to the God that all the other religions pay homage to."
Ken Kesey"Religion is meant to teach us true spiritual human character. It is meant for self-transformation. It is meant to transform anxiety into peace, arrogance into humility, envy into compassion, to awaken the pure soul in man and his love for the Source, which is God."
Radhanath Swami"The basic assumption of the secular society is that modernity overcomes religion."
Ulrich Beck"In the long term we can hope that religion will change the nature of man and reduce conflict. But history is not encouraging in this respect. The bloodiest wars in history have been religious wars."
Richard M. Nixon"It's not so much religion per se, it's false certainty that worries me, and religion just has more than its fair share of false certainty or dogmatism. I'm really concerned when I see people pretending to know things they clearly cannot know."
Sam Harris"Counting is the religion of this generation it is its hope and its salvation."
Gertrude Stein"A religion that takes no account of practical affairs and does not help to solve them is no religion."
Mahatma Gandhi"Out of all the ridiculous religion stories - which are greatly, wonderfully ridiculous - the silliest one I've ever heard is, 'Yeah, there's this big, giant universe, and it's expanding, and it's all going to collapse on itself, and we're all just here, just 'cuz. Just 'cuz.' That to me, is the most ridiculous explanation ever."
Trey Parker"The first time I sang in the church choir; two hundred people changed their religion."
Fred Allen"Liberalism is a religion. Its tenets cannot be proved, its capacity for waste and destruction demonstrated. But it affords a feeling of spiritual rectitude at little or no cost."
David Mamet"Music is one of the most powerful things the world has to offer. No matter what race or religion or nationality or sexual orientation or gender that you are, it has the power to unite us."
Lady Gaga"I don't see why we should alienate anyone, regardless of sexual orientation, nationality, religion, ethnicity."
Finn Balor"All religions and all communities have the same rights, and it is my responsibility to ensure their complete and total protection. My government will not tolerate or accept any discrimination based on caste, creed and religion."
Narendra Modi"In a perfect world, there would be freedom of religion and freedom for all religions to exercise their religion everywhere."
Naftali Bennett"Religion is inwardly focused and driven only to sustain itself."
Kary Mullis"Religion can never reform mankind because religion is slavery."
Robert Green Ingersoll"You won't see Christians violently attacking people for criticising their religion like you do with Islam, things like the Charlie Hebdo attack."
Lauren Southern"If fishing is a religion, fly fishing is high church."
Tom Brokaw"Religion can be the enemy of God. It's often what happens when God, like Elvis, has left the building."
Bono"I am proud to be a Sikh and am a true disciple of Guru Gobind Singh, who sacrificed his entire family for the Sikh religion."
Harbhajan Singh"People in love don't see gender, colour or religion. Or age. It's about the other person, the one that you love and who loves you. You don't think of them in terms of a label. You just go with your heart. -Sam Taylor"
Johnson"Movies are my religion and God is my patron. I'm lucky enough to be in the position where I don't make movies to pay for my pool. When I make a movie, I want it to be everything to me; like I would die for it."
Quentin Tarantino"When a dog barks at the moon, then it is religion; but when he barks at strangers, it is patriotism!"
David Starr Jordan"Cruel persecutions and intolerance are not accidents, but grow out of the very essence of religion, namely, its absolute claims."
Morris Raphael Cohen"Men despise religion. They hate it and are afraid it may be true."
Blaise Pascal"It's not just the effect of technology on the environment, on religion, on the economic structure, on society, on politics, etc. It's that everything now exists in technology to the point where technology is the new and comprehensive host of nature of life."
Godfrey Reggio"I've never had a mental break-down, where I've grappled with my own sense of religion, but I've definitely had my heart broken and fancied people I probably shouldn't have fancied and all that stuff."
Sophie Rundle"War is the greatest plague that can afflict humanity, it destroys religion, it destroys states, it destroys families. Any scourge is preferable to it."
Martin Luther"Democracy, pure democracy, has at least its foundation in a generous theory of human rights. It is founded on the natural equality of mankind. It is the cornerstone of the Christian religion. It is the first element of all lawful government upon earth."
John Quincy Adams"God save us from religion."
David Icke"The separation of church and state was meant to protect church from state; a state that declares religion off limits in public life is a state that declares itself supreme over all religious values."
Ben Shapiro"I would no more quarrel with a man because of his religion than I would because of his art."
Mary Baker Eddy"It's totally irrational, patently insane to condemn an entire race - to despise an entire nation - to vilify an entire religion."
Stan Lee"We are obliged, therefore, to say that whoever speaks that which is foreign to religion is using many words, while he who speaks the words of truth, even should he go over the whole field and omit nothing, is always speaking the one word."
Origen"I questioned the blind faith demanded by my religion, which was Islam."
Art Malik"I sometimes wish I had been educated a Catholic, in order to unite the poetry of religion with its higher principles. Are they necessarily inseparable? Is man really so much of a philosopher, that he can conceive of truth in its abstract purity, and divest life and the affections of all the aids of the imagination?"
James Fenimore Cooper"I'm a believer. I don't go to church. I don't belong to any particular religion, but I do believe in God. I couldn't write what I write about and be creative without a certain form of belief."
Nick Cave"My philosophy is that the most important aspect of any religion should be human kindness. And to try to ease the suffering of others. To try to bring light and love into the lives of mankind."
Steven Seagal"Science is a differential equation. Religion is a boundary condition."
Alan Turing"The NHS is the closest thing the English have to a religion."
Nigel Lawson"Religion is all bunk."
Thomas A. Edison"I say you don't need religion, or political ideology, to understand human nature. Science reveals that human nature is greedy and selfish, altruistic and helpful."
Michael Shermer"Just as Darwin discovered the law of development of organic nature, so Marx discovered the law of development of human history: the simple fact, hitherto concealed by an overgrowth of ideology, that mankind must first of all eat, drink, have shelter and clothing, before it can pursue politics, science, art, religion, etc."
Friedrich Engels"We need to reject any politics that targets people because of race or religion. This isn't a matter of political correctness. It's a matter of understanding what makes us strong. The world respects us not just for our arsenal; it respects us for our diversity and our openness and the way we respect every faith."
Barack Obama"To speak specifically of our problem with the Muslim world, we are meandering into a genuine clash of civilizations, and we're deluding ourselves with euphemisms. We're talking about Islam being a religion of peace that's been hijacked by extremists. If ever there were a religion that's not a religion of peace, it is Islam."
Sam Harris"I think religion is a gateway for spiritual awakening."
Gabrielle Bernstein"There is not enough religion in the world even to destroy religion."
Friedrich Nietzsche"Religion is the opium of the masses."
Karl Marx"Educate men without religion and you make of them but clever devils."
Duke of Wellington"If I had to choose a religion, the sun as the universal giver of life would be my god."
Napoleon Bonaparte"A political party cannot have a religion. Only individuals can. Otherwise, you'd be exploiting religion, and religion is so supreme that it cannot be exploited or taken advantage of."
Recep Tayyip Erdogan"I maintain that Truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect."
Jiddu Krishnamurti"I never rejected religion, but it just ceased to be an overriding concern in my life."
David Lowery"Boxing is a celebration of the lost religion of masculinity all the more trenchant for its being lost."
Joyce Carol Oates"Indians today are governed by two different ideologies. Their political ideal set in the preamble of the Constitution affirms a life of liberty, equality and fraternity. Their social ideal embodied in their religion denies them."
B. R. Ambedkar"As soon as beauty is sought not from religion and love, but for pleasure, it degrades the seeker."
Annie Dillard"No matter where you're from, no matter what religion you practice, your ethnicity, race, or anything else - what is it that can bring us together as people? It is, what we call in Hawaii, aloha... sincere, deep love and respect for other people as children of God."
Tulsi Gabbard"God does not discriminate against people, regardless of color, religion, social class, or gender and sexual preferences."
Rodrigo Duterte"The core of my life is Islam, my religion. Without that, I have no strength, no belief in God or in myself."
Naseem Hamed"I am not an atheist; I believe in God. But my religion ends there. I have my own personal belief system that is so strong it allows me to do what I do. I don't have to worry about going to Hell because of Slayer, you know? Everyone has a personal belief system and believes in life somehow."
Tom Araya"In the New Testament, religion is grace and ethics is gratitude."
Thomas Erskine"I think quite a bit of organized religion has become big business. Jesus Christ never sold the word of God. He never gave a sermon and then said, 'For $8.99, you can buy the CD.'"
Ving Rhames"Fear of things invisible in the natural seed of that which everyone in himself calleth religion."
Thomas Hobbes"Almost everything has been stolen from us by the patriarchy. Our creativity has been stolen, our creative energies, our religion. I want it back."
Mary Daly"Any religion that professes to be concerned about the souls of men and is not concerned about the slums that damn them, the economic conditions that strangle them and the social conditions that cripple them is a spiritually moribund religion awaiting burial."
Martin Luther King, Jr."The problem with Islam is that it's a law, not a religion, and it's incompatible with our values, our rights, and our freedoms."
Matteo Salvini"Many churches of all persuasions are hiring research agencies to poll neighborhoods, asking what kind of church they prefer. Then the local churches design themselves to fit the desires of the people. True faith in God that demands selflessness is being replaced by trendy religion that serves the selfish."
Billy Graham"I hate organized religion. I think you have to love thy neighbor as thyself. I think you have to pick your own God and be true to him. I always say 'him' rather than 'her.' Maybe it's because of my generation, but I don't like the idea of a female God. I see God as a benevolent male."
Julia Child"Religious wars are not caused by the fact that there is more than one religion, but by the spirit of intolerance... the spread of which can only be regarded as the total eclipse of human reason."
Montesquieu"Demonization of people on the basis of race, religion, sexual orientation, or other criteria leads to dehumanization. The notion that some are 'other' is a dangerous and slippery slope."
Kerry Kennedy"Women have been the most persecuted people throughout all of recorded history, more than any race or religion."
Leonardo DiCaprio"If a man reaches the heart of his own religion, he has reached the heart of the others, too. There is only one God, and there are many paths to him."
Mahatma Gandhi"The religion I know most about, which is the Christian one, would simply say that it's not really for one man or woman to know fully and to understand the nature of our brief human existence."
Sebastian Faulks"Eradicating a religion of kindness is, I think, a terrible thing for the Chinese to attempt."
Martin Scorsese"Religion. A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable."
Ambrose Bierce"I mean, I went to a Catholic boys' school for a year, but that was to play hockey. Religion class was quite contentious for me."
Keanu Reeves"I'm going to tell you what my religion is. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Period. Terminato. Finito."
Gene Wilder"I was born Jewish, and I consider that my religion. But I've studied all religions, and as you learn more, you really learn that everyone's praying to the same God."
Goldie Hawn"Religion stands, the Church blocking the sun."
Stephen Spender"Everything is a risk in Pakistan: If you defend women, it's a risk. If you defend non-Muslims it's a risk. If you discuss religion, it's a risk. But you can't really sit there like a vegetable in your own society. And I'm committed to that society... and I feel I need to turn around and speak as I should."
Asma Jahangir"The very idea that we get a moral compass from religion is horrible. Not only should we not get our moral compass from religion, as a matter of fact we don't."
Richard Dawkins"I believe in the Constitution. The Constitution says that government isn't supposed to be infusing religion into our society, and so I asked to have that upheld."
Michael Newdow"I think part of being Jewish is that innate desire to question things. Rabbis sit around all day and question the Torah. Giving yourself the room to question things, in a religion, just breeds thinking."
Iliza Shlesinger"Superstition is the religion of feeble minds."
Edmund Burke"Just as 'Islam' literally means 'peace,' none of the 99 names of Allah mean violence. Similarly, every religion in the world stands for peace, compassion, and brotherhood."
Sushma Swaraj"I've got no problem with anybody's religion. But if you go claiming the Earth is only 10,000 years old, that's just wrong."
Bill Nye"To a mind like mine, restless, inquisitive, and observant of everything that was passing, it is easy to suppose that religion was the subject to which it would be directed; and, although this subject principally occupied my thoughts, there was nothing that I saw or heard of to which my attention was not directed."
Nat Turner"Among politicians the esteem of religion is profitable; the principles of it are troublesome."
Benjamin Whichcote"If God existed, and if He cared for humankind, He would never have given us religion."
Martin Amis"It is possible that mankind is on the threshold of a golden age; but, if so, it will be necessary first to slay the dragon that guards the door, and this dragon is religion."
Bertrand Russell"Religion is interesting because it brings out the best and the worst in humanity. It can be a source of good deeds, whether it's people from different spiritual backgrounds coming together to help other people in need after a crisis. But it's also a cause for war and bloodshed."
Josh Gad"I care not much for a man's religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it."
Abraham Lincoln"Religion and science are the two conjugated faces or phases of one and the same complete act of knowledge - the only one which can embrace the past and future of evolution and so contemplate, measure and fulfil them."
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin"There is no conflict between the ideal of religion and the ideal of science, but science is opposed to theological dogmas because science is founded on fact. To me, the universe is simply a great machine which never came into being and never will end. The human being is no exception to the natural order. Man, like the universe, is a machine."
Nikola Tesla"I'm actually an evangelical atheist, but there is something I recognise about religion: that it gives people a chance to surrender."
Brian Eno"I'm ready for a Christianity that 'ruins' my life, that captures my heart and makes me uncomfortable. I want to be filled with an astonishment which is so captivating that I am considered wild and unpredictable and... well... dangerous. Yes, I want to be 'dangerous' to a dull and boring religion."
Mike Yaconelli"America's freedom of religion, and freedom from religion, offers every wisdom tradition an opportunity to address our soul-deep needs: Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, secular humanism, agnosticism and atheism among others."
Parker Palmer"Religion is the impotence of the human mind to deal with occurrences it cannot understand."
Karl Marx"Freedom prospers when religion is vibrant and the rule of law under God is acknowledged."
Ronald Reagan"God put me on this earth to be a tool."
Tito Ortiz