Law can discover sin, but not remove,
Save by those shadowy expiations weak.
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.
See sin in state, majestically drunk;
Proud as a peeress, prouder as a punk.
It is great sin to swear unto a sin,
But greater sin to keep a sinful oath.
In all your actions remember your last end and you will never sin.
Nor custom, nor example, nor vast numbers
Of such as do offend, make less the sin.
He of their wicked ways
Shall them admonish, and before them set
The paths of righteousness.
By thy language cabalistic,
By thy cymbal, drum, and his stick.
I preached as never sure to preach again,
And as a dying man to dying men.
Who after his transgression doth repent,
Is halfe, or altogether, innocent.
The Puritan did not stop to think; he recognized God in his soul, and acted.
To happy convents, bosom'd deep in vines,
Where slumber abbots purple as their wines.
I’m not a practitioner of any religion, and I like it that way.
In religion,
What damned error, but some sober brow
Will bless it and approve it with a text.
The vision of Christ that thou dost see
Is my vision's greatest enemy.