Religion Quotes
Religion is a page where believers and unbelievers share space. Shakespeare and Milton lead, but Robert Ingersoll and the biologist Jerry Coyne are close behind, and the sourced favourites lean sceptical: Bertrand Russell in Sceptical Essays (1928) on moralists and Hell, Bierce in 1911 calling religion a daughter of Hope and Fear.
Three entries are flagged. “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep” is credited to the missionary Jim Elliot, and the notes call it a paraphrase of the English clergyman Philip Henry (1631–1696). Newton’s remark that he could calculate the motions of heavenly bodies but not the madness of the people is disputed, and it is usually tied to the South Sea stock bubble. A line about Earth and Heaven credited to David Hare is flagged misattributed.
So they used religion – Christianity to be more specific – to deceive us
[Mystics] have been fundamental [to the church]. A religion without mystics is a philosophy.
He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.
And while the lamp holds out to burn,
The vilest sinner may return.
The true office of religion is to bring out the whole nature of man in harmonious activity.
Nothing is further than Earth from Heaven: nothing is nearer than Heaven to Earth.