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Religion assures us that our afflictions shall have an end; she comforts us, she dries our tears, she promises us another life. On the contrary, in the abominable worship of atheism, human woes are the incense, death is the priest, a coffin the altar, and annihilation the Deity.

— François-René de Chateaubriand The Genius of Christianity (1802)

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More quotes by François-René de Chateaubriand

I am Bourbon as a matter of honour, royalist according to reason and conviction, and republican by taste and character.

De la restauration et de la monarchie élective (1831)

The original writer is not one who imitates nobody, but one whom nobody can imitate.

As soon as a true thought has entered our mind, it gives a light which makes us see a crowd of other objects which we have never perceived before.

In living literature no person is a competent judge but of works written in his own language.

I have explored the seas of the Old World and the New, and trodden the soil of the four quarters of the Earth.

Mémoires d'outre-tombe (1848)

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All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree. All these aspirations are directed toward ennobling man's life, lifting it from the sphere of mere physical existence and leading the individual towards freedom.

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Science and religion are two human enterprises sharing many features.

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The moment the idea is admitted into society, that property is not as sacred as the law of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence.

John Adams A Defence of the Constitutions of Government (1787)

The Puritan hated bear-baiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators.

Thomas Babington Macaulay History of England (1849)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: François-René de Chateaubriand (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.