c2p-cmd/Good-Quotes-Authors huggingface dataset:
There was a time when people accepted magical experiences as natural. There were no priests then, and no one went chasing after the secrets of the occult.
— Paulo Coelho
I think it [religion] is an art, the greatest one; an extension of the communion all the other arts attempt.
— Dodie Smith, I Capture the Castle
Today evolution of human intelligence has advanced us to the stage where most of us are too smart to invent new gods but are reluctant to give up the old ones.
— Ruth Hurmence Green
Far from seeking to justify, as does the Church, the necessity of torments and afflictions, he cried, in his outraged pity: 'If a God has made this world, I should not wish to be that God. The world's wretchedness would rend my heart.
— Joris-Karl Huysmans, Against Nature
Not a believer in the mosque am I,Nor a disbeliever with his rites am I.I am not the pure amongst the impure,I am neither Moses nor Pharaoh.Bulleh, I know not who I am.Not in the holy books am I,Nor do I dwell in bhang or wine,Nor do I live in a drunken haze,Nor in sleep or waking known.Bulleh, I know not who I am.Not in happiness or in sorrow am I found.I am neither pure nor mired in filthy ground.Not of water nor of land,Nor am I in air or fire to be found.Bulleh, I know not who I am.Not an Arab nor Lahori,Not a Hindi or Nagouri,Nor a Muslim or Peshawari,Not a Buddhist or a Christian.Bulleh, I know not who I am.Secrets of religion have I not unravelled,I am not of Eve and Adam.Neither still nor moving on,I have not chosen my own name!Bulleh, I know not who I am.From first to last, I searched myself.None other did I succeed in knowing.Not some great thinker am I.Who is standing in my shoes, alone?Bulleh, I know not who I am.
— Bulleh Shah
I have always considered myself a person with a gypsy heart, and I Surrender my dreams to my soul, for it's a free sprit who believes in no boundaries of region and religion.
— Megha Khare, Write like no one is reading 2
I hate organized religion. I hate that people use it to justify their crappy, bigoted beliefs.
— Hannah Harrington, Saving June
Oh Lord Most High, Creator of the Cosmos, Spinner of Galaxies, Soul of Electromagnetic Waves, Inhaler and Exhaler of Inconceivable Volumes of Vacuum, Spitter of Fire and Rock, Trifler with Millennia — what could we do for Thee that Thou couldst not do for Thyself one octillion times better? Nothing. What could we do or say that could possibly interest Thee? Nothing. Oh, Mankind, rejoice in the apathy of our Creator, for it makes us free and truthful and dignified at last. No longer can a fool point to a ridiculous accident of good luck and say, 'Somebody up there likes me.' And no longer can a tyrant say, 'God wants this or that to happen, and anyone who doesn't help this or that to happen is against God.' O Lord Most High, what a glorious weapon is Thy Apathy, for we have unsheathed it, have thrust and slashed mightily with it, and the claptrap that has so often enslaved us or driven us into the madhouse lies slain!" -The prayer of the Reverend C. Horner Redwine
— Kurt Vonnegut Jr., The Sirens of Titan
They are trying to make me into a fixed star. I am an irregular planet.
— Martin Luther
Is it more probable that nature should go out of her course or that a man should tell a lie? We have never seen, in our time, nature go out of her course. But we have good reason to believe that millions of lies have been told in the same time. It is therefore at least millions to one that the reporter of a miracle tells a lie.	
— Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason
You could just as well say that an agnostic is a deeply religious person with at least a rudimentary knowledge of human fallibility.
— Carl Sagan
With the moon walk, the religious myth that sustained these notions could no longer be held. With our view of earthrise, we could see that the earth and the heavens were no longer divided but that the earth is in the heavens. (105)
— Joseph Campbell, Thou Art That: Transforming Religious Metaphor
Only a very few can be learned, but all can be Christian, all can be devout, and – I shall boldly add – all can be theologians.
— Erasmus
Listen to the secret sound, the real sound, which is inside you. The one no one talks of speaks the secret sound to himself, and he is the one who has made it all.
— Kabir
We are living in a time when sensitivities are at the surface, often vented with cutting words. Philosophically, you can believe anything so as you do not claim it a better way. Religiously, you can hold to anything, so long as you do not bring Jesus Christ into it. If a spiritual idea is eastern, it is granted critical immunity; if western, it is thoroughly criticized. Thus, a journalist can walk into a church and mock its carryings on, but he or she dare not do the same if the ceremony is from eastern fold. Such is the mood at the end of the twentieth century. A mood can be a dangerous state of mind, because it can crush reason under the weight of feeling. But that is precisely what I believe postmodernism best represents - a mood.
— Ravi Zacharias, Jesus Among Other Gods: The Absolute Claims of the Christian Message
I always tell my Western friends that it is best to keep your own tradition. Changing religion is not easy and sometimes causes confusion. You must value your tradition and honor your own religion.
— Dalai Lama XIV
They are not mad. They're trained to believe, not to know. Belief can be manipulated. Only knowledge is dangerous.
— Frank Herbert, Dune Messiah
To regret religion is to regret Western civilization.
— Theodore Dalrymple
it is interesting to find that people of faith now seek defensively to say that they are no worse than fascists or Nazis or Stalinists
— Christopher Hitchens, god is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything
I have no argument with those who see in organized religion a template or an imperative to live life according to a prescribed set of beliefs. Just give others the room, within the laws of civil society, to believe or not believe whatever they like.
— Michael J. Fox, Always Looking Up: The Adventures of an Incurable Optimist
Religion, mysticism and magic all spring from the same basic 'feeling' about the universe: a sudden feeling of meaning, which human beings sometimes 'pick up' accidentally, as your radio might pick up some unknown station. Poets feel that we are cut off from meaning by a thick, lead wall, and that sometimes for no reason we can understand the wall seems to vanish and we are suddenly overwhelmed with a sense of the infinite interestingness of things.
— Colin Wilson, The Occult
Every advance in human life, every scrap of knowledge and wisdom and decency we have has been torn by one side from the teeth of the other. Every little increase in human freedom has been fought over ferociously between those who want us to know more and be wiser and stronger, and those who want us to obey and be humble and submit.
— Philip Pullman, The Amber Spyglass
Religion is more than rite and ritual.
— Yann Martel, Life of Pi
Christians often ask why God does not speak to them, as he is believed to have done in former days. When I hear such questions, it always makes me think of the rabbi who asked how it could be that God often showed himself to people in the olden days whereas nowadays nobody ever sees him. The rabbi replied: "Nowadays there is no longer anybody who can bow low enough."This answer hits the nail on the head. We are so captivated by and entangled in our subjective consciousness that we have forgotten the age-old fact that God speaks chiefly through dreams and visions. The Buddhist discards the world of unconscious fantasies as useless illusions; the Christian puts his Church and his Bible between himself and his unconscious; and the rational intellectual does not yet know that his consciousness is not his total psyche.
— C.G. Jung
Sex is like an atom bomb. A potent weapon which fascinates and frightens. We're afraid to let it loose, yet we all have our finger on the button.”--Zeena Schreck, Cuir Underground: Sado-Magic for Satan Interview, 1998
— Zeena Schreck, Demons of the Flesh: The Complete Guide to Left Hand Path Sex Magic
When even the brightest mind in our world has been trained up from childhood in a superstition of any kind, it will never be possible for that mind, in its maturity, to examine sincerely, dispassionately, and conscientiously any evidence or any circumstance which shall seem to cast a doubt upon the validity of that superstition. I doubt if I could do it myself.
— Mark Twain, The Autobiography of Mark Twain
The argument goes something like this: "I refuse to prove that I exist," says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing.
— Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
It is easier to change a man's religion than to change his diet.
— Margaret Mead
Since Jimmy Carter, religious fundamentalists play a major role in elections. He was the first president who made a point of exhibiting himself as a born again Christian. That sparked a little light in the minds of political campaign managers: Pretend to be a religious fanatic and you can pick up a third of the vote right away. Nobody asked whether Lyndon Johnson went to church every day. Bill Clinton is probably about as religious as I am, meaning zero, but his managers made a point of making sure that every Sunday morning he was in the Baptist church singing hymns.
— Noam Chomsky
Jack didn’t fully get Jesus. Audrey tried to explain it, and he could repeat it back to her, word for word, but he still didn’t comprehend most of it. The best he could gather was that Jesus lived long ago, told people to be nice, and they killed him for it. At the end, he asked who was Jesus’ necromancer and if he was in the Bible, then Kaldar couldn’t stop laughing and had to sit down.
— Ilona Andrews, Fate's Edge
We have to believe in free-will. We've got no choice.
— Isaac Bashevis Singer
All the tales of miracles, with which the Old and New Testament are filled, are fit only for impostors to preach and fools to believe.
— Thomas Paine, The Writing of Thomas Paine
Untilled ground, however rich, will bring forth thistles and thorns; so also the mind of man.
— Teresa of Ávila
You cannot exalt God and yourself at the same time.
— Rick Warren
To know much and taste nothing-of what use is that?
— Bonaventure
A non-religious man today ignores what he considers sacred but, in the structure of his consciousness, could not be without the ideas of being and the meaningful. He may consider these purely human aspects of the structure of consciousness. What we see today is that man considers himself to have nothing sacred, no god; but still his life has a meaning, because without it he could not live; he would be in chaos. He looks for being and does not immediately call it being, but meaning or goals; he behaves in his existence as if he had a kind of center. He is going somewhere, he is doing something. We do not see anything religious here; we just see man behaving as a human being. But as a historian of religion, I am not certain that there is nothing religious here…I cannot consider exclusively what that man tells me when he consciously says, ‘I don’t believe in God; I believe in history,’ and so on. For example, I do not think that Jean-Paul Sartre gives all of himself in his philosophy, because I know that Sartre sleeps and dreams and likes music and goes to the theater. And in the theater he gets into a temporal dimension in which he no longer lives his ‘moment historique.’ There he lives in quite another dimension. We live in another dimension when we listen to Bach. Another experience of time is given in drama. We spend two hours at a play, and yet the time represented in the play occupies years and years. We also dream. This is the complete man. I cannot cut this complete man off and believe someone immediately when he consciously says that he is not a religious man. I think that unconsciously, this man still behaves as the ‘homo religiosus,’ has some source of value and meaning, some images, is nourished by his unconscious, by the imaginary universe of the poems he reads, of the plays he sees; he still lives in different universes. I cannot limit his universe to that purely self-conscious, rationalistic universe which he pretends to inhabit, since that universe is not human.
— Mircea Eliade
Religion... has certain ideas at the heart of it which we call sacred or holy or whatever... If someone votes for a party that you don't agree with, you're free to argue about it as much as you like; everybody will have an argument but nobody feels aggrieved by it. If somebody thinks taxes should go up or down you are free to have an argument about it. But on the other hand if somebody says 'I must [not] move a light switch on a Saturday', you say, 'I respect that'... Yet when you look at it rationally there is no reason why those ideas shouldn't be as open to debate as any other, except that we have agreed somehow between us that they shouldn't be.
— Douglas Adams
It seems to me that no matter what religion you subscribe to, acts of kindness are the stepping-stones to making the world a better place--because we become better people in it.
— Jodi Picoult, Change of Heart
I'm not out to disturb anybody's faith. I happen to be happy and comfortable with a belief system that has a dual deity and operates on a lunar schedule. It suits my needs. If you happen to be happy and comfortable with a belief system that features a single masculine deity and operates on a solar schedule, fine. I don't give a fat damn. What matters is what you do, not who's name you do it in.
— Mercedes Lackey, Burning Water
We make time for what we truly value. We build habits and routines around the things that really matter to us. This is an important principle to understand as we seek to build our lives around the gospel. Do you want a cross centered life? A cross centered life is made up of cross centered days.
— C.J. Mahaney
One thing about great art: it made you love people more, forgive them their petty transgressions. It worked in the way that religion was supposed to, if you thought about it.
— Nick Hornby, Juliet, Naked
God, come down, if you're really there -Well, you're the one who claims to care!
— Morrissey
The more profoundly we study this wonderful book [the Bible], and the more closely we observe its divine precept, the better citizens we will become and the higher will be our destiny as a nation.
— William McKinley
You would have realized that it wasn't Mumtaz, a muslim, a friend of yours, but a human being you had killed. I mean, if he was a bastard, by killing him you wouldn't have killed the bastard in him; similarly, assuming that he was a Muslim, you wouldn't have killed his Muslimness, but him.
— Saadat Hasan Manto, Toba Tek Singh: Stories
Life is but a momentary glimpse of the wonder of this astonishing universe, and it is sad to see so many dreaming it away on spiritual fantasy.
— Andy Mulcahy
The word desire suggests that there is something we do not have. If we have everything already, then there can be no desire, for there is nothing left to want. I think that what the Buddha may have been trying to tell us is that we have it all, each of us, all the time; therefore, desire is simply unnecessary.
— Tom Robbins, Jitterbug Perfume
No one can do everything, but everyone can do something
— Max Lucado, Outlive Your Life: You Were Made to Make A Difference
Every natural love will rise again and live forever in this country: but none will rise again until it has been buried.
— C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce
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
If you want to teach your children that they are the tools of God, you had better not teach them that they are God's rifles, or we will have to stand firmly opposed to you: your doctrine has no glory, no special rights, no intrinsic and inalienable merit. If you insist on teaching your children false-hoods—that the Earth is flat, that "Man" is not a product of evolution by natural selection—then you must expect, at the very least, that those of us who have freedom of speech will feel free to describe your teachings as the spreading of falsehoods, and will attempt to demonstrate this to your children at our earliest opportunity. Our future well-being—the well-being of all of us on the planet—depends on the education of our descendants.
— Daniel C. Dennett, Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life
If people but knew their own religion, how tolerant they would become, and how free from any grudge against the religion of others.
— Hazrat Inayat Khan, The Bowl of Saki: Thoughts for Daily Contemplation from the Sayings and Teachings of Hazrat Inayat Khan
I used to listen to the monks repeating the Lord's Prayer; I wondered how they could continue to pray without misgiving to their heavenly father to give them their daily bread. Do children beseech their earthly father to give them sustenance? They expect him to do it, they neither feel gratitude to him for doing so nor need to, and we have only blame for a man who brings children into the world that he can't or won't provide for. It seemed to me that if an omnipotent creator was not prepared to provide for his creatures with the necessities, material and spiritual, of existence he'd have done better not to create them.
— W. Somerset Maugham, The Razor's Edge
We, ignorant of ourselves,Beg often our own harms, which the wise powersDeny us for our good; so find we profitBy losing of our prayers.
— William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra
It's not arrogant to say that you can't figure out the answers to the universe with your internal faith. It's not arrogant to know that there's no omniscient, omnipotent prime mover in the universe who loves you personally. It's not sad to feel that life and the love of your real friends and family is more than enough to make life worth living. Isn't it much sadder to feel that there is a more important love required than the love of the people who have chosen to spend their limited time with you?
— Penn Jillette, God, No! Signs You May Already Be an Atheist and Other Magical Tales
Spiritual realization is theoretically the easiest thing and in practice the most difficult thing there is. It is the easiest because it is enough to think of God. It is the most difficult because human nature is forgetfulness of God.
— Frithjof Schuon, Spiritual Perspectives And Human Facts
Any civilization where the main symbol of religious veneration is a tool of execution is a bad place to have children.
— Charles Stross, Toast, and Other Stories
Mythology may, in a real sense, be defined as other people's religion. And religion may, in a sense, be understood as popular misunderstanding of mythology. (8)
— Joseph Campbell, Thou Art That: Transforming Religious Metaphor
I am for freedom of religion, and against all maneuvers to bring about a legal ascendency of one sect over another.
— Thomas Jefferson
Christ died for our sins. Dare we make his martyrdom meaningless by not committing them?
— Jules Feiffer
Christianity is a religion in a rush.
— Yann Martel, Life of Pi
He die one day, and then he go above of my head to live with your father."He weared the long hair, and after he died, the first day he come back here for to say hello to the peoples."He nice, the Jesus.
— David Sedaris, Me Talk Pretty One Day
Scientists have power by virtue of the respect commanded by the discipline... We live with poets and politicians, preachers and philosophers. All have their ways of knowing, and all are valid in their proper domain. The world is too complex and interesting for one way to hold all the answers.
— Stephen Jay Gould, Bully for Brontosaurus: Reflections in Natural History
The saviour answered...and said, If you want to be perfect, you will keep these teachings. If not, you deserve to be called ignorant. For a wise person cannot associate with a fool. The wise person is perfect in all wisdom, but to the fool, good and evil are one and the same. For the wise person will be nourished by the truth...Some people have wings but run after what they can see, what is far from the truth.
— Anonymous, Holy Bible: New International Version
I am satisfied, and sufficiently occupied with the things which are, without tormenting or troubling myself about those which may indeed be, but of which I have no evidence.
— Thomas Jefferson
But I do like Scotland. I like the miserable weather. I like the miserable people, the fatalism, the negativity, the violence that's always just below the surface. And I like the way you deal with religion. One century you're up to your lugs in it, the next you're trading the whole apparatus in for Sunday superstores. Praise the Lord and thrash the bairns. Ask and ye shall have the door shut in your face. Blessed are they that shop on the Sabbath, for they shall get the best bargains. Oh yes, this is a very fine country.
— James W. Robertson
religion is for man and not man for religion
— B.R. Ambedkar, Writings And Speeches: A Ready Reference Manual
In the tenth century BC, the priests of India devised the Brahmodya competition, which would become a model of authentic theological discourse. The object was to find a verbal formula to define the Brahman, the ultimate and inexpressible reality beyond human understanding. The idea was to push language as far as it would go, until participants became aware of the ineffable. The challenger, drawing on his immense erudition, began the process by asking an enigmatic question and his opponents had to reply in a way that was apt but equally inscrutable. The winner was the contestant who reduced the others to silence. In that moment of silence, the Brahman was present - not in the ingenious verbal declarations but in the stunning realisation of the impotence of speech. Nearly all religious traditions have devised their own versions of this exercise. It was not a frustrating experience; the finale can, perhaps, be compared to the moment at the end of the symphony, when there is a full and pregnant beat of silence in the concert hall before the applause begins. The aim of good theology is to help the audience to live for a while in that silence.
— Karen Armstrong, The Case for God
Persecution is not an original feature in any religion but it is always the strongly marked feature of all religions established by law. 
— Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason
As long as a population can be induced to believe in a supernatural hereafter, it can be oppressed and controlled. People will put up with all sorts of tyranny, poverty, and painful treatment if they're convinced that they'll eventually escape to some resort in the sky where lifeguards are superfluous and the pool never closes. Moreover, the faithful are usually willing to risk their skins in whatever military adventure their government may currently be promoting.
— Tom Robbins, Skinny Legs and All
salvation is for the feeble, that's what I think. I don't want salvation, I want life, all of life, the miserable as well as the superb.
— Tom Robbins, Jitterbug Perfume
You have told me, O God, to believe in hell. But you have forbidden me to think...of any man as damned
— Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
I can worship Nature, and that fulfills my need for miracles and beauty. Art gives a spiritual depth to existence -- I can find worlds bigger and deeper than my own in music, paintings, and books. And from my friends and family I receive the highest benediction, emotional contact, and personal affirmation. I can bow before the works of Man, from buildings to babies, and that fulfills my need for wonder. I can believe in the sanctity of Life, and that becomes the Revealed Word, to live my life as I believe it should be, not as I'm told to by self-appointed guides.
— Neil Peart, The Masked Rider: Cycling in West Africa
That which is impenetrable to us really exists. Behind the secrets of nature remains something subtle, intangible, and inexplicable. Veneration for this force beyond anything that we can comprehend is my religion.
— Albert Einstein
Allah is the Greatest. I'm just the greatest boxer
— Muhammad Ali
Amendment to live by-J.O.Y.Jesus first, Others second, Yourself last.
— Michelle Duggar
I have always thought that if women's hair posed so many problems, God would certainly have made us bald.
— Marjane Satrapi, The Complete Persepolis
But how can the characters in a play guess the plot? We are not the playwright, we are not the producer, we are not even the audience. We are on the stage. To play well the scenes in which we are "on" concerns us much more than to guess about the scenes that follow it.
— C.S. Lewis
Lord, if I thought you were listening, I'd pray for this above all: that any church set up in your name should remain poor, and powerless, and modest. That it should wield no authority except that of love. That it should never cast anyone out. That it should own no property and make no laws. That it should not condemn, but only forgive. That it should be not like a palace with marble walls and polished floors, and guards standing at the door, but like a tree with its roots deep in the soil, that shelters every kind of bird and beast and gives blossom in the spring and shade in the hot sun and fruit in the season, and in time gives up its good sound wood for the carpenter; but that sheds many thousands of seeds so that new trees can grow in its place. Does the tree say to the sparrow, 'Get out, you don't belong here?' Does the tree say to the hungry man, 'This fruit is not for you?' Does the tree test the loyalty of the beasts before it allows them into the shade?
— Philip Pullman, The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ
I am not a religious man. I have not attended a service for many years. But I do believe in God. My own practice of religion, you could say, it a nonpractice. I personally feel that it's just as worthy on a weekend to rake the lawns of an elderly neighbor or to climb a mountain and marvel at the beauty of this land we live in as it is to sing hosannas or go to Mass. In other words, I think every many finds his own church- and not all of them have four walls - Judge Haig (Page 399)
— Jodi Picoult, Change of Heart
There are conversations going on about the Church constantly. Those conversations will continue whether or not we choose to participate in them. But we cannot stand on the sidelines while others, including our critics, attempt to define what our Church teaches... We are living in a world saturated with all kinds of voices. Perhaps now, more than ever, we have a major responsibility as Latter-day Saints to define ourselves, instead of letting others define us.
— M. Russell Ballard
I realized I was going to get through this disappointing service, and anyway, you have to be somewhere: better here, where I have heard truth spoken so often, than, say, at the DMV, or home alone, orbiting my own mind. And it's good to be out where others can see you, so you can't be your ghastly spoiled self. It forces you to act slightly more elegantly, and this improves your thoughts, and thereby the world.
— Anne Lamott, Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith
To me, religion is about our dignity, not our depravity.
— Yann Martel
It is great good health to believe as the Hindus do that there are 33 million gods and goddesses in the world. It is great good health to want to understand one s dreams. It is great good health to desire the ambiguous and paradoxical. It is sickness of the profoundest kind to believe that there is one reality. There is sickness in any piece of work or any piece of art seriously attempting to suggest that the idea that there is more than one reality is somehow redundant.
— Clive Barker
We're starting our own religion at last. The Order of Frisbeetarians. We believe that when you die, your soul ascends to a rooftop and you can never get it back.
— Bono
An eternity of wishing to speak directly to my Creator - I thought in despair - and this is how He finally contacts me? Through AOL Instant Messenger?
— A.M. Jenkins, Repossessed
Sin will take you where you didn't plan to go. It will keep you there longer than you planned to stay. And it will cost you more than you intended to pay
— James L. Nicodem, Prayer Coach: For All Who Want to Get Off the Bench and Onto the Praying Field
We are not worshipping anyone or anything, we are simply communing with creation.
— Paulo Coelho, The Witch Of Portobello
Vampires, like virgins or priests, are things that women believe in. We must never fail to humor them in such matters.
— Brian McNaughton
...Catholic versus Protestant, essentially. It's that kind of fight. ... And it goes on to this day. Will we never learn? Who knows? Religion. Shit it.
— Stephen Fry
Peace, sweet peace finally comes to men when they humbly yield to the gentle pressure of the Spirit.
— Spencer W. Kimball, Faith Precedes the Miracle
Your religious beliefs are your business. They are not and should not be the basis for law. If you use them as justification to discriminate against others, don’t be upset when others decide you’re an asshole."]
— Jim C. Hines
I do not think that all who choose wrong roads perish; but their rescue consists in being put back on the right road. A sum can be put right: but only by going back til you find the error and working it afresh from that point, never by simply going on. Evil can be undone, but it cannot 'develop' into good. Time does not heal it. The spell must be unwound, bit by bit, 'with backward mutters of dissevering power' --or else not.
— C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce
Wizards don't believe in gods in the same way that most people don't find it necessary to believe in, say, tables. They know they're there, they know they're there for a purpose, they'd probably agree that they have a place in a well-organised universe, but they wouldn't see the point of believing, of going around saying "O great table, without whom we are as naught." Anyway, either the gods are there whether you believe in them or not, or exist only as a function of the belief, so either way you might as well ignore the whole business and, as it were, eat off your knees.
— Terry Pratchett, Reaper Man
Christians. They’re determined to rid the land of any who worship the Horned One. Murdering all the druids, burning the temples, sometimes whole villages, and knocking over the standing stones.” The Lady’s face hardened. “This god of peace and love certainly likes to bathe the land in blood.
— Brom, The Child Thief
If you desire to find the true spirit of Christmas and partake of the sweetness of it, let me make this suggestion to you. During the hurry of the festive occasion of this Christmas season, find time to turn your heart to God. Perhaps in the quiet hours, and in a quiet place, and on your knees—alone or with loved ones—give thanks for the good things that have come to you, and ask that His Spirit might dwell in you as you earnestly strive to serve Him and keep His commandments. He will take you by the hand and His promises will be kept.
— Howard W. Hunter
What each of us believes in is up to us, but life is impossible without believing in something.
— Kentetsu Takamori, Unlocking Tannisho: Shinran's Words on the Pure Land Path
Be careful what you wish for. You never know who will be listening.
— Terry Pratchett, Soul Music
In all times, and all countries especially in those countries which are divided within by religious faith, there are always fanatics who will be well contented to be regarded as martyrs.
— Alexandre Dumas, The Three Musketeers
It is not possible to be 'incidentally a Christian.' The fact of Christianity must be overwhelmingly first or nothing. This suggests a reason for the dislike of Christians by nominal or non-Christians: their lives contain no overwhelming first but many balances.
— Sheldon Vanauken
I've never had much use for religion, except when it comes to swearing or begging for mercy.
— Mark  Lawrence, The Wheel of Osheim
They could not understand the advantage of living contrary to their inclinations in this world in order to enjoy a hypothetical well-being in another. 
— Isabel Allende, Zorro
You must promise me. You can't desire the end without desiring the means.'Ah, but one can, he thought, one can: one can desire the peace of victory without desiring the ravaged towns.
— Graham Greene, The Heart of the Matter
We need to eliminate the concept of division by class, skills, race, income, religion, and nationality. Every human requires food and water to survive and every human has a heart that bleeds, loves, and grieves.
— Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem
For a considerable portion of humanity today, it is possible and indeed likely that one's neighbor, one's colleague, or one's employer will have a different mother tongue, eat different food, and follow a different religion than oneself. It is a matter of great urgency, therefore, that we find ways to cooperate with one another in a spirit of mutual acceptance and respect.In such a world, I feel, it is vital for us to find genuinely sustainable and universal approach to ethics, inner values, and personal integrity-an approach that can transcend religious, cultural, and racial differences and appeal to people at a sustainable, universal approach is what I call the project of secular ethics.All religions, therefore, to some extent, ground the cultivation of inner values and ethical awareness in some kind of metaphysical (that is, not empirically demonstrable) understanding of the world and of life after death. And just as the doctrine of divine judgment underlies ethical teachings in many theistic religions, so too does the doctrine of karma and future lives in non-theistic religions.As I see it, spirituality has two dimensions. The first dimension, that of basic spiritual well-being-by which I mean inner mental and emotional strength and balance-does not depend on religion but comes from our innate human nature as beings with a natural disposition toward compassion, kindness, and caring for others. The second dimension is what may be considered religion-based spirituality, which is acquired from our upbringing and culture and is tied to particular beliefs and practices. The difference between the two is something like the difference between water and tea.On this understanding, ethics consists less of rules to be obeyed than of principles for inner self-regulation to promote those aspects of our nature which we recognize as conducive to our own well-being and that of others.It is by moving beyond narrow self-interest that we find meaning, purpose, and satisfaction in life.
— Dalai Lama XIV, Beyond Religion: Ethics for a Whole World
That's who Jesus Christ is. He became the final Priest and the final Sacrifice. Sinless, he did not offer sacrifices for himself. Immortal, he never has to be replaced. Human, he could bear human sins. Therefore he did not offer sacrifices for himself; he offered himself as the final sacrifice. There will never be the need for another. There is one mediator between us and God. One priest. We need no other. Oh, how happy are those who draw near to God through Christ alone.
— John Piper, The Passion of Jesus Christ
You can never talk religion on network TV. It makes too many people angry. You can talk about sex.
— Craig Ferguson
The believer in magic and miracles reflects on how to impose a law on nature--: and, in brief, the religious cult is the outcome of this reflection.
— Friedrich Nietzsche, A Nietzsche Reader
We should never wait for science to give us permission to do the uncommon; if we do, then we are turning science into another religion.
— Joe Dispenza, Breaking The Habit of Being Yourself: How to Lose Your Mind and Create a New One
When I was in my single digits, I was subjected to the worst torture you can possibly inflict on a child: Catholic mass.
— Tyler Oakley, Binge
Don't measure the size of the mountain talk to the One who can move it. 
— Max Lucado
The faith of religion is belief on insufficient evidence.
— Sam Harris
When...did it become irrational to dislike religion, any religion, even to dislike it vehemently? When did reason get redescribed as unreason? When were the fairy stories of the superstitious placed above criticism, beyond satire? A religion was not a race. It was an idea, and ideas stood (or fell) because they were strong enough (or too weak) to withstand criticism, not because they were shielded from it. Strong ideas welcomed dissent.
— Salman Rushdie, Joseph Anton: A Memoir
If the heart be chiefly and directly fixed on God, and the soul engaged to glorify him, some degree of religious affection will be the effect and attendant of it. But to seek after affection directly and chiefly; to have the heart principally set upon that; is to place it in the room of God and his glory. If it be sought, that others may take notice of it, and admire us for our spirituality and forwardness in religion, it is then damnable pride; if for the sake of feeling the pleasure of being affected, it is then idolatry and self-gratification.
— Jonathan Edwards, The Life and Diary of David Brainerd
Patriotism is a kind of religion; it is the egg from which wars are hatched."]
— Guy de Maupassant, The Complete Short Stories Vol. 2 of 3
Both porn and religion distort a person’s perspectives on women.
— Jesse Dangerously
I believe in rendering to science the things that belong to science. I have no problem with evolution or discussions of the age of the Earth, for I don't believe that we come anywhere near comprehending the mind of God or the workings of the universe. Science can explain a lot, but it cannot give us faith, and I think we need both.
— Brandon Sanderson
I know one thing you don't. I know the difference between Right and Wrong. They didn't teach you that at school.'Rose didn't answer the woman was quite right: the two words meant nothing to her. Their taste was extinguished by stronger foods--Good and Evil. 
— Graham Greene, Brighton Rock
I don't think it's possible to c-call yourself a C-Christian and... and j-just leave out the awkward bits.' -Wilfred Owen
— Pat Barker, Regeneration
When people want to be rid of Heaven it is logical to start by creating an atmosphere in which spiritual things appear out of place; in order to be able to declare successfully that God is unreal they have to construct around man a false reality, a reality that is inevitably inhuman because only the inhuman can exclude God. What is involved is a falsification of the imagination and so its destruction.
— Frithjof Schuon, Understanding Islam
religion is no longer the opium of the people but the vitamin pills of the feeble.
— Régis Debray, Media Manifestos: On the Technological Transmission of Cultural Forms
How do you know it's not true if you don't believe in it?
— Pete Hautman
You ever watch a football game and get totally into it? Why? It's not a real battle. It's just a game somebody made up. So how can you take it seriously? Or, you ever see a movie that made your heart about jump out of your chest? Or one that made you cry? Why? It wasn't real. You ever look at a photo of food that made your mouth water? Why? You can't eat the picture.. . . . .Same thing with water towers and God. I don't have to be a believer to be serious about my religion.
— Pete Hautman, Godless
Religious man was born to be saved, psychological man is born to be pleased.
— Philip Rieff, The Triumph of the Therapeutic: Uses of Faith after Freud
Whoever has My commandments and keeps them loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and show Myself to him.
— Anonymous
I used to think that kid might become a preacher. Now I don't see how he's going to stay out of prison. Nobody in this family ever went to prison for sex crimes. He'd be the first."Yes," says Jesus, "you never know about these things."He and Grandpa are drinking cups of coffee and eating ginger snaps. Grandpa says, "When are you planning to return to earth?"Soon as I finish this coffee," say Jesus. "Pretty good, isn't it.
— Garrison Keillor
The world citizen is a small leaf on the giant tree of life. They do not see a difference between the branch they were born on and the remaining branches on the tree, because they understand well that we are are all connected to the same roots. The world citizen sees each section of the world as part of their arm, leg, eyes, and heart. They do not class, contain or separate themselves or their identity by ethnicity or religion -- because they see their existence as a small part of a greater whole. When asked about their religion, the world citizen simply replies: 'My heart.
— Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem
The worst moment for the atheist is when he is really thankful and has nobody to thank.
— Dante Gabriel Rossetti
The world can no longer be left to mere diplomats, politicians, and business leaders. They have done the best they could, no doubt. But this is an age for spiritual heroes- a time for men and women to be heroic in their faith and in spiritual character and power. The greatest danger to the Christian church today is that of pitching its message too low.
— Dallas Willard, The Spirit of the Disciplines : Understanding How God Changes Lives
Mr. Brown had thought of nothing but numbers. He should have known that the kingdom of God did not depend on large crowds. Our Lord Himself stressed the importance of fewness. Narrow is the way and few the number. To fill the Lord's holy temple with an idolatrous crowd clamoring for signs was a folly of everlasting consequence. Our Lord used the whip only once in His life - to drive the crowd away from His church.
— Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart
Churches thrive on martyrdom and persecution.
— Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land
Men are free when they are obeying some deep, inward voice of religious belief. Obeying from within. Men are free when they belong to a living, organic, believing community, active in fulfilling some unfulfilled, perhaps unrealized purpose. Not when they are escaping to some wild west. The most unfree souls go west, and shout of freedom.
— D.H. Lawrence, Studies in Classic American Literature
I believe in the Supreme Being, in a Creator, whatever he may be. I care little who has placed us here below to fulfil our duties as citizens and fathers of families; but I don't need to go to church to kiss silver plates, and fatten, out of my pocket, a lot of good-for-nothings who live better than we do. For one can know him as well in a wood, in a field, or even contemplating the eternal vault like the ancients. My God! mine is the God of Socrates, of Franklin, of Voltaire, and of Beranger! I am for the profession of faith of the 'Savoyard Vicar,' and the immortal principles of '89! And I can't admit of an old boy of a God who takes walks in his garden with a cane in his hand, who lodges his friends in the belly of whales, dies uttering a cry, and rises again at the end of three days; things absurd in themselves, and completely opposed, moreover, to all physical laws, which proves to us, by the way, that priests have always wallowed in turpid ignorance, in which they would fain engulf the people with them.
— Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary
Religion is never more tested than when our emotions are ablaze. At such a time, the timeless grandeur of the Law and its ethics stand at our mercy.
— Abdal Hakim Murad
I feel compelled to make another 'nonapology.' Many readers are likely to be concerned about my use of masculine pronouns in relation to God. I think I both understand and appreciate this concern. It is a matter to which I have given much thought. I have generally been a strong supporter of the women's movement and action that is reasonable to combat sexist language. But first of all, God is not neuter. He is exploding with life and love and even sexuality of a sort. So 'It' is not appropriate. Certainly I consider God androgynous. He is as gentle and tender and nurturing and maternal as any woman could ever be. Nonetheless, culturally determined though it may be, I subjectively experience His reality as more masculine than feminine. While He nurtures us, He also desires to penetrate us, and while we more often than not flee from His love like a reluctant virgin, He chases after us with a vigor in the hunt that we most typically associate with males. As CS Lewis put it, in relation to God we are all female. Moreover, whatever our gender or conscious theology, it is our duty---our obligation---in response to His love to attempt to give birth, like Mary, to Christ in ourselves and in others."I shall, however, break with tradition and use the neuter for Satan. While I know Satan to be lustful to penetrate us, I have not in the least experienced this desire as sexual or creative---only hateful and destructive. It is hard to determine the sex of a snake.
— M. Scott Peck, People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil
He prays because he knows he doesn't control it. He's at the mercy of it.
— Michael Crichton, Jurassic Park
I don't care what is written," Meyer Landsman says. "I don't care what supposedly got promised to some sandal-wearing idiot whose claim to fame is that he was ready to cut his own son's throat for the sake of a hare-brained idea. I don't care about red heifers and patriarchs and locusts. A bunch of old bones in the sand. My homeland is in my hat. It's in my ex-wife's tote bag.
— Michael Chabon, The Yiddish Policemen's Union
It is this mythical, or rather symbolic, content of the religious traditions which is likely to come into conflict with science. This occurs whenever this religious stock of ideas contains dogmatically fixed statements on subjects which belong in the domain of science.
— Albert Einstein
O Allah! If I worship You for fear of Hell, burn me in Hell, and if I worship You in hope of Paradise, exclude me from Paradise. But if I worship You for Your Own sake, grudge me not Your everlasting Beauty.--Ya Allah, jika aku menyembahMu karena takut neraka, bakarlah aku di dalamnya, dan jika aku menyembahMu karena mengharap surga, campakkanlah aku darinya. Tetapi, jika aku menyembahMu demi Engkau semata, Janganlah Engkau enggan memperlihatkan keindahan wajahMu Yang abadi padaku.
— Rābiʻah al-ʻAdawīyah
The goal of religious thinking is exactly the same as that of technological research -- namely, practical action. Whenever man is truly concerned with obtaining concrete results, whenever he is hard pressed by reality, he abandons abstract speculation and reverts to a mode of response that becomes increasingly cautious and conservative as the forces he hopes to subdue, or at least to outrun, draw ever nearer.
— René Girard, Violence and the Sacred
And Priests in black gowns, were walking their rounds, And binding with briars, my joys & desires.
— William Blake, Songs of Innocence and of Experience
No religion except ours has taught that man is born in sin none of the philosophical sects has admitted it none therefore has spoken the truth 
— Blaise Pascal, Pensées
Being lost is the way, how else can you be found?
— Elizabeth Cunningham, The Passion of Mary Magdalen
There is an old story from the Eastern tradition that says that when the gods created the universe, they found a place for everything but the truth, and this created a problem, because the gods did not want this wisdom discovered right away. One of the gods suggested the top of the highest mountain, another the farthest star, a third spoke up for the dark side of the moon, and another for the bottom of the deepest ocean. Finally, they decide to place truth inside the human heart. In that way, we would search for it all over the universe, with the secret within us all the time. 
— Stephen Kendrick, Holy Clues: The Gospel According to Sherlock Holmes
As is well known, the priests are the most evil enemies—but why? Because they are the most impotent. It is because of their impotence that in them hatred grows to monstrous and uncanny proportions, to the most spiritual and poisonous kind of hatred. The truly great haters in world history have always been priests; likewise the most ingenious haters: other kinds of spirit hardly come into consideration when compared with the spirit of priestly vengefulness.
— Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals/Ecce Homo