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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.

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Most quoted on religion:

A grievous crime indeed against religion has been committed by the man who imagines that Islam is defended by the denial of the mathematical sciences.

Abu Hamid al-Ghazali

The quintessential emblem of religion—and the clearest manifestation of the perversity that lies at its core—is the sacrifice of a child by a parent.

Stephen Greenblatt The Swerve (2011)

I would spend whole weeks trying to untangle the lush foliage of bribes, kickbacks, nepotism, pride, religion, and mañana that is business in South America.

Nancy Kress With the Original Cast (1982)

Freedom of speech wasn’t won by being nice, it has been won by struggle with religion.

David Starkey

The peaceful coexistence among people of different ethnicities, religions, is so important: we are all brothers, sons, and daughters.

Mitja Leskovar

Thus, it seems clear that intelligent design should be considered a religion for First Amendment purposes.

Eugenie Scott Not in Our Classrooms: Why Intelligent Design Is Wrong for Our Schools (2006)

“Religion is the illusion of having answers to questions to which no one has answers.”

Paulo Bittencourt Liberated from Religion: The Inestimable Pleasure of Being a Freethinker (2022)

Killing people, blowing yourself up, pointing accusing fingers: that isn’t religion, and it’s very far from Islam.

Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz

I hope to have a body of work on women, children and religion.

Marilou Diaz-Abaya

A man may die by a fever as well as by consumption, and religion is as effectually destroyed by bigotry as by indifference.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Religion leaves no room for human complexity.

Daniel Radcliffe

Adoration whereby we adore God is an act of religion.

Thomas Aquinas

Over the years my religion has changed and my spirituality has evolved.

Muhammad Ali The Soul of a Butterfly (2004)

We shall have no need for art or religion because we shall be in ourselves a work of art.

Henry Miller The Wisdom of the Heart (1941)

Much of our modern difficulty, in religion and other things, arises merely from this: that we confuse the word "indefinable" with the word "vague."

G. K. Chesterton Charles Dickens (1906)

Attunement could occur through any of the great religions, but would be tied exclusively to none of them.

Ken Wilber

At the dawn of religion, all the knowledge of a particular community fitted into a spiritual framework, based largely on religious values and ideas.

Wolfgang Pauli

Fear and ignorance, you will continue, are two mainstays of any and all religions.

Marquis de Sade Philosophy in the Bedroom (1795)

Organized religion is a sham and a crutch for weak-minded people who need strength in numbers.

Jesse Ventura

If there are errors in other religions, that is none of our business. God, to whom the world belongs, takes care of that.

Ramakrishna The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna (1942)

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