text:
Religiousness

 * This page is for quotes on religiousness or religiosity. See also: Religion and Irreligiousness

A through C

 * Twenty times in the course of my late reading have I been on the point of breaking out, "This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it!!!" But in this exclamation I would have been as fanatical as Bryant or Cleverly.  Without religion this world would be something not fit to be mentioned in polite company, I mean hell. So far from believing in the total and universal depravity of human nature, I believe there is no individual totally depraved. The most abandoned scoundrel that ever existed, never yet wholly extinguished his conscience, and while conscience remains there is some religion.
 * John Adams to Thomas Jefferson (19 April 1817). The italicized section within this statement has often been quoted out of context, starting with Thomas Jefferson's reply, given below. Just before this in the letter Adams explained:
 * Lemuel Bryant was my Parish Priest; and Joseph Cleverly my Latin School Master. Lemuel was a jolly jocular and liberal schollar and Divine. Joseph a Schollar and a Gentleman; but a biggoted episcopalian, a down right conscientious passive Obedience Man in Church and State. The Parson and the Pedagogue lived much together, but were eternally disputing about Government and Religion. One day, when the Schoolmaster had been more than commonly fanatical and declared "If he were a Monarck, He would have but one Religion in his Dominions" the Parson cooly replied, "Cleverly! you would be the best Man in the World, if You had no Religion."

 * I saw my Lord with the Eye of my heart, And I said: Truly there is no doubt that it is You.  It is You that I see in everything;  And I do not see You through anything (but You).
 * Al-Hallaj

 * Civilized people—Muslims, Christians, and Jews—all understand that the source of freedom and human dignity is the Creator.
 * John Ashcroft Remarks addressed to the National Religious Broadcasters Convention in Nashville, Tennessee, on 19 February 2002

 * All that we refrain from and all that we do, let us not do or refrain from merely because it seems to the multitude somehow honorable or base, but because it is forbidden by reason and the god within us.
 * Marcus Aurelius

 * All things are implicated with one another, and the bond is holy; and there is hardly anything unconnected with any other things. For things have been co-ordinated, and they combine to make up the same universe.  For there is one universe made up of all things, and one God who pervades all things, and one substance, and one law, and one reason.
 * Marcus Aurelius

 * A little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion.
 * Francis Bacon in "Of Atheism".

 * Even in the slightest breeze you can hear the voice of the cottonwood tree; this we understand is its prayer to the Great Spirit, for not only men, but all things and all beings pray to Him continually in different ways.
 * Black Elk in The Sacrerd Pipe (1953).

 * No coward soul is mine, No trembler in the world's storm-troubled sphere : I see Heaven's glories shine, And Faith shines equal, arming me from Fear.
 * Emily Brontë

 * Though earth and moon were gone,
 * And suns and universes ceased to be,
 * And Thou wert left alone,
 * Every existence would exist in Thee.

 * Emily Brontë

 * There is surely a piece of divinity within us, something that was before the elements, and owes no homage unto the sun.
 * Thomas Browne

 * Our times are in his hand Who saith, "A whole I planned, Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!"
 * Robert Browning

 * The miracles of the church seem to me to rest not so much upon faces or voices or healing power coming suddenly near to us from afar off, but upon our perceptions being made finer, so that for a moment our eyes can see and our ears can hear what is there about us always.
 * Willa Cather, Death Comes for the Archbishop (1927)

 * The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried.
 * G.K. Chesterton What's Wrong with the World, Part One: The Homelessness Of Man, Ch. 5 : The Unfinished Temple (1910).

 * In my religion there would be no exclusive doctrine; all would be love, poetry and doubt.
 * Cyril Connolly, The Unquiet Grave (1945)

D through L

 * I can doubt everything, except one thing, and that is the very fact that I doubt.
 * Rene Descartes (1596 - 1650)

 * I never spoke with God, Nor visited in heaven; Yet certain am I of the spot As if the chart were given.
 * Emily Dickinson

 * For God's sake hold your tongue, and let me love.
 * John Donne, The Canonization, stanza 1.

 * A man may go into the field and say his prayer and be aware of God, or, he may be in Church and be aware of God; but, if he is more aware of Him because he is in a quiet place, that is his own deficiency and not due to God, Who is alike present in all things and places, and is willing to give Himself everywhere so far as lies in Him. He knows God rightly who knows Him everywhere.
 * Meister Eckhart

 * I believe that you can reach the point where there is no longer any difference between developing the habit of pretending to believe and developing the habit of believing.
 * Umberto Eco

 * In essence, my religion consists of a humble admiration for this illimitable superior spirit that reveals itself in the slight details that we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble minds.
 * Albert Einstein, as quoted in The Private Albert Einstein (1992) by Peter A. Bucky and Allen G. Weakland, p. 86.

 * Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.
 * Albert Einstein in Science and Religion (1941)

 * It is, therefore, quite natural that the churches have always fought against science and have persecuted its supporters. But, on the other hand, I assert that the cosmic religious experience is the strongest and noblest driving force behind scientific research.
 * Albert Einstein in "Religion and Science," New York Times Magazine (9 November 1930)

 * In spite of our imbecility and terrors, and "universal decay of religion," &c. &c, the moral sense reappears today with the same morning newness that has been from of old the fountain of beauty and strength. You say, there is no religion now. 'Tis like saying in rainy weather, there is no sun, when at that moment we are witnessing one of his superlative effects.
 * Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Conduct of Life (1860), Essay VI ("Worship")

 * Belief consists in accepting the affirmations of the soul; Unbelief, in denying them.
 * Ralph Waldo Emerson

 * Religion is to do right. It is to love, it is to serve, it is to think, it is to be humble.
 * Ralph Waldo Emerson

 * We have now learned from our generalizations of the great complexity of the interactions of principles... that what is approached is eternal and instant awareness of absolute reality of all that ever existed. All the great metaphysical integrity of all the individuals, which is potential and inherent in the complex interactions of generalized principles, will always and only coexist eternally.
 * Buckminster Fuller

 * You and I didn't design people. God designed people.  What I am trying to do is to discover why God included humans in the Universe.
 * Buckminster Fuller

 * Even as a tree has a single trunk but many branches and leaves, there is one religion —- human religion -— but any number of faiths.
 * Mahatma Gandhi

 * Freedom from all attachment is the realization of God as Truth.
 * Mahatma Gandhi

 * Hinduism as I know it entirely satisfies my soul, fills my whole being … When doubts haunt me, when disappointments stare me in the face, and when I see not one ray of light on the horizon, I turn to the Bhagavad Gita, and find a verse to comfort me; and I immediately begin to smile in the midst of overwhelming sorrow. My life has been full of tragedies and if they have not left any visible and indelible effect on me, I owe it to the teachings of the Bhagavad Gita.
 * Mahatma Gandhi

 * My effort should never be to undermine another's faith but to make him a better follower of his own faith.
 * Mahatma Gandhi

 * The irreligious are more religious than they themselves know, and the religious are less so than they think.
 * Franz Grillparzer, aphorism (1857), in Studien zur Philosophie und Religion. Historische und politische Studien, 2011, p. 32

 * God created Arrakis to train the faithful.
 * Frank Herbert (in Dune)

 * Much that was called religion has carried an unconscious attitude of hostility toward life. True religion must teach that life is filled with joys pleasing to the eye of God, that knowledge without action is empty.  All men must see that the teaching of religion by rules and rote is largely a hoax.  The proper teaching is recognized with ease.  You can know it without fail because it awakens within you that sensations which tells you this is something you've always known.
 * Frank Herbert (in Dune)

 * The folkish-minded man, in particular, has the sacred duty, each in his own denomination, of making people stop just talking superficially of God's will, and actually fulfill God's will, and not let God's word be desecrated. For God's will gave men their form, their essence and their abilities. Anyone who destroys His work is declaring war on the Lord's creation, the divine will.
 * Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Ralph Mannheim translation, p. 562.

 * Captain, my religious belief teaches me to feel as safe in battle as in bed. God has fixed the time for my death. I do not concern myself about that, but to be always ready, no matter when it may overtake me … That is the way all men should live, and then all would be equally brave.
 * Stonewall Jackson

 * Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this: To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.
 * James 1:27, New Testament

 * Religion, whatever it is, is a man's total reaction upon life.
 * William James

 * I promised you a letter on Christianity, which I have not forgotten. On the contrary, it is because I have reflected on it, that I find much more time necessary for it than I can at present dispose of. I have a view of the subject which ought to displease neither the rational Christian nor Deists, and would reconcile many to a character they have too hastily rejected. I do not know that it would reconcile the genus irritabile vatum who are all in arms against me. Their hostility is on too interesting ground to be softened. The delusion into which the X. Y. Z. plot showed it possible to push the people; the successful experiment made under the prevalence of that delusion on the clause of the Constitution, which, while it secured the freedom of the press, covered also the freedom of religion, had given to the clergy a very favorite hope of obtaining an establishment of a particular form of Christianity through the United States; and as every sect believes its own form the true one, every one perhaps hoped for his own, but especially the Episcopalians and Congregationalists. The returning good sense of our country threatens abortion to their hopes, and they believe that any portion of power confided to me, will be exerted in opposition to their schemes. And they believe rightly: for I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man. But this is all they have to fear from me: and enough too in their opinion.
 * Thomas Jefferson, letter to Benjamin Rush, 23 September 1800, in The Writings of Thomas Jefferson (Lipscomb-Bergh edition, 1904), Volume X, pp. 174-175.

 * Among the most inestimable of our blessings, also, is that you so justly particularize, of liberty to worship our Creator in the way we think most agreeable to His will; a liberty deemed in other countries incompatible with good government, and yet proved by our experience to be its best support.
 * Thomas Jefferson, letter to Captain John Thomas, 18 November 1807 in The Writings of Thomas Jefferson (Lipscomb-Bergh edition, 1904), Volume XVI, p. 291. Often misquoted as "Religion is deemed in other countries incompatible with good government and yet proved by our experience to be its best support."

 * I believe, with the Quaker preacher, that he who steadily observes those moral precepts in which all religions concur, will never be questioned at the gates of heaven, as to the dogmas in which they all differ.
 * Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Canby, 18 September 1813, in The Writings of Thomas Jefferson (Lipscomb-Bergh edition, 1903), Volume XIII, p. 377.

 * I join you, therefore, in sincere congratulations that this den of the priesthood is at length broken up, and that a Protestant Popedom is no longer to disgrace the American history and character. If by religion, we are understand sectarian dogmas, in which no two of them agree, then your exclamation on that hypothesis is just, "that this would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it." But if the moral precepts, innate in man, and made a part of his physical constitution, as necessary for a social being, if the sublime doctrines of philanthropism and deism taught us by Jesus of Nazareth, in which all agree, constitute true religion, then, without it, this would be, as you again say, "something not fit to be named, even indeed, a hell."
 * Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams (in reply to the letter quoted under Adams above), 5 May 1817, in The Writings of Thomas Jefferson (Lipscomb-Bergh edition, 1903), Volume XV, p. 109.

 * I saw a marvellous high mystery hid in God, which mystery He shall openly make known to us in Heaven: in which knowing we shall verily see the cause why He suffered sin to come. In which sight we shall endlessly joy in our Lord God.
 * Julian of Norwich

 * Deep, solemn optimism, it seems to me, should spring from this firm belief in the presence of God in the individual; not a remote, unapproachable governor of the universe, but a God who is very near every one of us, who is present not only in earth, sea and sky, but also in every pure and noble impulse of our hearts, 'the source and centre of all minds, their only point of rest'.
 * Helen Keller

 * I believe it is a sacred duty to encourage ourselves and others; to hold the tongue from any unhappy word against God's world, because no man has any right to complain of a universe which God made good, and which thousands of men have striven to keep good. I believe we should so act that we may draw nearer and more near the age when no man shall live at his ease while another suffers.  These are the articles of my faith, and there is yet another on which all depends -— to bear this faith above every tempest which overfloods it, and to make it a principal in disaster and through affliction.  Optimism is the harmony between man's spirit and of God pronouncing His works good.
 * Helen Keller

 * We must forgive our enemies. I can truly say that not a day has passed since the war began that I have not prayed for them.
 * General Robert E. Lee

 * The best way to insure the earth is never over populated is for sensible and righteous governments to clear all forms of atheism and heresy.
 * Robert T. Lee (Society for the Practical Establishment of the Ten Commandments)

 * With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan —- to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.
 * Abraham Lincoln

M through Z

 * ...it may be that there is no God, that "the existence of all that is beautiful and in any sense good is but the accidental and ineffective byproduct of blindly swirling atoms," that we are alone in a world that cares nothing for us or for the values that we create and sustain - that we and they are here for a moment only, and gone, and that eventually there will be left no trace of us in the universe. "A man may well believe that this dredful thing is true. But only the fool will say in his heart that he is glad that it is true.
 * Sterling M. McMurrin

 * Atheism leads not to badness, but only to an incurable sadness and loneliness.
 * William Pepperell Montague

 * [Z]eal for the advancement of religion is different from a due attachment to it; and that in order to love it and fulfil its behests, it is not necessary to hate and persecute those who are opposed to it.
 * Letter No. 60 of the in 1721 published Persian Letters by Montesquieu

 * Every religion assumes that God loves men, since He establishes a religion for their happiness; and since He loves men we are certain of pleasing Him in loving them, too. Usbek’s prayer in Letter XLVI. Is not yet out of date. “Lord, I do not understand any of those discussions that are carried on without end regarding Thee: I would serve Thee according to Thy will; but each man whom I consult would have me serve Thee according to his.” He insists that religion is intended for man’s happiness; and that, in order to love it and fulfil its behests, it is not necessary to hate and persecute those who are opposed to our beliefs – not necessary even to attempt to convert them.
 * Introduction by John Davidson of the in 1721 published Persian Letters by Montesquieu

 * ...resident mockery give us an hour for magic.
 * Jim Morrison, from the spoken-word album An American Prayer

 * Let's reinvent the gods, all the myths of the ages Celebrate symbols from deep elder forests...
 * Jim Morrison, from the spoken-word album, An American Prayer (1978), released posthumously

 * O great creator of being grant us one more hour to perform our art and perfect our lives.
 * Jim Morrison, from the spoken-word album An American Prayer

 * I believe in one God, and no more; and I hope for happiness beyond this life. I believe in the equality of humans; and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring to make our fellow creatures happy.
 * Thomas Paine

 * My country is the world, and my religion is to do good.
 * Thomas Paine

 * Anybody that believes in separation of church and state needs to leave right now.
 * Star Parker (Coalition on Urban Renewal & Education)

 * The whole duty of humanity, from a Christian perspective is: "To know God and to show God."
 * James Patterson

 * Religion itself is nothing else but Love to God and Man. He that lives in Love lives in God, says the Beloved Disciple: And to be sure a Man can live no where better.
 * William Penn

 * The 'wall of separation between church and state' is a metaphor based on bad history, a metaphor which has proved useless as a guide to judging. It should be frankly and explicitly abandoned.
 * William Rehnquist (Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court)

 * Creation is too grand, too glorious, too complex and too mysterious to be captured in any narrow creed or reflected in any single metaphor. It is exactly because we so cherish the world in all its multi-hued grandeur that we resist the temptation to see it through only one lens.  Our conviction is that we will come a little closer to the truth about the world -- and certainly be more receptive to its splendour if we set a variety of vehicles to apprehend it.
 * William F. Schultz

 * “[J]ust as the illiterate cannot read books like those who are literate, neither can those who have refused to go through the commandments of Christ by practicing them be granted the revelation of the Holy Spirit like those who have brooded over them and fulfilled them and shed their blood for them.”
 * St. Symeon the New Theologian, “On Spiritual Knowledge” - Discourse 24 (in the Paulist Press ed.)

 * That friend of mine who lives in God, That God, which ever lives and loves, One God, one law, one element, And one far-off divine event, To which the whole creation moves.
 * Alfred, Lord Tennyson

 * I have seen several entirely sincere people who thought they were (permanent) Seekers after Truth. They sought diligently, persistently, carefully, cautiously, profoundly, with perfect honesty and nicely adjusted judgment--until they believed that without doubt or question they had found the Truth. That was the end of the search. The man spent the rest of his life hunting up shingles wherewith to protect his Truth from the weather. If he was seeking after political Truth he found it in one or another of the hundred political gospels which govern men in the earth; if he was seeking after the Only True Religion he found it in one or another of the three thousand that are on the market. In any case, when he found the Truth he sought no further; but from that day forth, with his soldering-iron in one hand and his bludgeon in the other he tinkered its leaks and reasoned with objectors.
 * (from What is Man?) - Mark Twain

 * Those who believe that they believe in God, but without passion in their hearts, without anguish in mind, without uncertainty, without doubt, without an element of despair even in their consolation, believe only in the God idea, not in God Himself.
 * Miguel de Unamuno

 * Once you accept the existence of God —- however you define him, however you explain your relationship to him -— then you are caught forever with his presence in the center of all things.
 * Morris West

 * I see something of God each hour of the twenty-four, and each moment then, In the faces of men and women I see God, and in my own face in the glass, I find letters from God dropt in the street, and every one is sign'd by God's name...
 * Walt Whitman (in Leaves of Grass)

 * What do I know about God and the purpose of life? I know that this world exists.
 * Ludwig Wittgenstein

 * To believe in God means to see that the facts of the world are not the end of the matter. To believe in God means to see that life has a meaning.
 * Ludwig Wittgenstein

 * Certainly it is correct to say: Conscience is the voice of God.
 * Ludwig Wittgenstein

title: Religiousness


text:
Irreligiousness

 * This page is for quotes on Irreligiousness; See also: Religion and Religiousness

Irreligion or irreligiousness is an umbrella term which, depending on context, may be understood as referring to atheism, agnosticism, deism, skepticism, freethought, secular humanism, or general secularism.

Irreligion has at least three related yet distinct meanings:
 * lack of religion (either due to a lack of information about religion or to lack of belief in it)
 * hostility to religion
 * behaving in such a way that fails to live up to one's religious tenets

A

 * The inhabitants of the earth are of two sorts: Those with brains, but no religion, And those with religion, but no brains.
 * Abu'l-`Ala' al-Ma`arri, d. 1057, poet of Ma`arra; quoted in The Crusades Through Arab Eyes, by Amin Maalouf

 * I have no religion, and at times I wish all religions at the bottom of the sea. He is a weak ruler who needs religion to uphold his government; it is as if he would catch his people in a trap. My people are going to learn the principles of democracy, the dictates of truth and the teachings of science. Superstition must go. Let them worship as they will; every man can follow his own conscience, provided it does not interfere with sane reason or bid him against the liberty of his fellow-men.
 * Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, as quoted in Atatürk: The Biography of the Founder of Modern Turkey (2002) by Andrew Mango ISBN 158567334X

B

 * All religions, with their gods, demigods, prophets, messiahs and saints, are the product of the fancy and credulity of men who have not yet reached the full development and complete possession of their intellectual powers.
 * Mikhail Bakunin, God and the State (1871).

 * You believe in a book that has talking animals, wizards, witches, demons, sticks turning into snakes, food falling from the sky, people walking on water, and all sorts of magical, absurd and primitive stories, and you say that we are the ones that need help?
 * Dan Barker, co-president of the Freedom from Religion Foundation, in Losing Faith in Faith: From Preacher to Atheist (1992; ISBN 1877733075.

 * If there really is a God who created the entire universe with all of its glories, and He decides to deliver a message to humanity, He will not use, as His messenger, a person on cable TV with a bad hairstyle.
 * Dave Barry, 25 Things I Have Learned in 50 Years.

 * IRRELIGION, n. The principal one of the great faiths of the world.
 * Ambrose Bierce, The Cynic's Dictionary (1906); republished as The Devil's Dictionary (1911).

 * It's a big question. Getting rid of religion would be a good start, wouldn't it? It seems to be causing a lot of havoc.
 * Björk when asked "Given the chance, how would you change the world?"; quoted in Independent, 18 March 2005.

 * Maybe you've put your faith in spiritual claptrap because our random, narrative-free universe terrifies you. But that's no solution. If you want comforting, suck your thumb. Buy a pillow. Don't make up a load of floaty blah about energy or destiny. This is the real world, stupid. We should be solving problems, not sticking our fingers in our ears and singing about fairies.

 * It is in the uncompromisingness with which dogma is held and not in the dogma, or want of dogma, that the danger lies.
 * Samuel Butler, The Way Of All Flesh (1903).

C

 * Atheism is a non-prophet organization.
 * George Carlin.

 * Religion claims to be in possession of an absolute truth; but its history is a history of errors and heresies. It gives us the promise and prospect of a transcendent world — far beyond the limits of our human experience — and it remains human, all too human.
 * Ernest Cassirer, "An Essay on Man".

 * Religion is the most malevolent of all mind viruses.
 * Arthur C. Clarke, Onion AV Club interview, 18 February 2004.

D

 * When I view all beings not as special creations, but as the lineal descendants of some few beings which lived long before the first bed of the Cambrian system was deposited, they seem to me to become ennobled.
 * Charles Darwin in The Origin of Species, 6th ed. (1872), page 428.

F

 * A religion, even if it calls itself a religion of love, must be hard and unloving to those who do not belong to it.
 * Sigmund Freud, Group Psychology And The Analysis Of The Ego (1921).

 * Religion is an attempt to get control over the sensory world, in which we are placed, by means of the wish-world which we have developed inside us as a result of biological and psychological necessities. [...] If one attempts to assign to religion its place in man's evolution, it seems not so much to be a lasting acquisition, as a parallel to the neurosis which the civilized individual must pass through on his way from childhood to maturity.
 * Sigmund Freud, Moses and Monotheism (1939).

 * Religion is an illusion and it derives its strength from the fact that it falls in with our instinctual desires.
 * Sigmund Freud, New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis.

G

 * Can you hate something you don't believe in? And yet he called himself a free-thinker. What an impossible paradox, to be free and to be so obsessed.
 * Graham Greene, "The Hint of an Explanation" (1948), Twenty-One Stories. London: Heinemann, 1954.

 * Die Irreligiösen sind religiöser als sie selbst wissen, und die Religiösen sind's weniger, als sie meinen.
 * Translation: The irreligious are more religious than they themselves know, and the religious are less so than they think.
 * Franz Grillparzer, aphorism (1857), in Studien zur Philosophie und Religion. Historische und politische Studien. Hamburg: Tredition, 2011, p. 32. ISBN 978-3-8424-1558-4.

H

 * I don't care what the priests say. I think we should do as we feel.
 * Bernadette "Benny" Hogan, in Circle of Friends (1995).

J

 * When I came here, I put my hand on the Bible and swore to uphold the Constitution. I didn't put my hand on the Constitution and swear to uphold the Bible.
 * U.S. Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr., voting against a House resolution supporting a judge displaying the Ten Commandments in court
 * "Jesse Jackson Jr.", USA Today, July 25-27, 1997
 * variations are credited to Bill Maher (Real Time with Bill Maher, 1 April 2005; quoted in "Jamie Raskin", Urban Legends Reference Pages) and American University professor Jamie Raskin (in a hearing on the gay marriage prohibition Constitutional amendment, 1 March 2006; "Emotions flare over same-sex marriage", Baltimore Sun, 2 March 2006, and ULRP).

L

 * History does not record anywhere a religion that has any rational basis. Religion is a crutch for people not strong enough to stand up to the unknown without help.
 * Lazarus Long, in Time Enough for Love by Robert A. Heinlein''

 * It is a truism that almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so, and will follow it by suppressing opposition, subverting all education to seize early the minds of the young, and by killing, locking up, or driving underground all heretics.
 * Lazarus Long, in Time Enough for Love by Robert A. Heinlein

 * The most preposterous notion that H. sapiens has ever dreamed up is that the Lord God of Creation, Shaper and Ruler of all the Universes, wants the saccharine adoration of His creatures, can be swayed by their prayers, and becomes petulant if He does not receive this flattery. Yet this absurd fantasy, without a shred of evidence to bolster it, pays all the expenses of the oldest, largest, and least productive industry in all history.
 * Lazarus Long, in Time Enough for Love by Robert A. Heinlein''.

M

 * Man's unfailing capacity to believe what he prefers to be true rather than what the evidence shows to be likely and possible has always astounded me. We long for a caring Universe which will save us from our childish mistakes, and in the face of mountains of evidence to the contrary we will pin all our hopes on the slimmest of doubts. God has not been proven not to exist, therefore he must exist.
 * Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, character: Academician Prokhor Zakharov

P

 * Bertrand Russell in speech "Why I Am Not a Christian" (1927).
 * Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in disbelieving; it consists in professing to believe what he does not believe.
 * Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason.

 * The gods of the Disc have never bothered much about judging the souls of the dead, and so people only go to hell if that's where they believe, in their deepest heart, that they deserve to go. Which they won't do if they don't know about it. This explains why it is so important to shoot missionaries on sight.
 * Terry Pratchett, Eric.

 * ''Notre Père qui êtes aux cieux Restez-y Et nous, nous resterons sur la terre qui est quelques fois si jolie.
 * Translation: Our father which art in Heaven, Stay there, And we shall stay on Earth which is sometimes so pretty.
 * Jacques Prévert, Pater Noster

R

 * I am as firmly convinced that religions do harm as I am that they are untrue.
 * Bertrand Russell in book Why I Am Not a Christian: And Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects (1957).

 * I do not think that the real reason why people accept religion is anything to do with argumentation. They accept religion on emotional grounds. One is often told that it is a very wrong thing to attack religion, because religion makes men virtuous. So I am told; I have not noticed it.
 * Bertrand Russell in speech "Why I Am Not a Christian" (1927).

S

 * Do you know what the definition of a terrorist is? Some definitions say terrorists use violence, but it can also be the threatened use of violence for the purpose of creating fear in order to achieve a religious goal. This is exactly what [evangelists do], they put the fear of God and Hell into nonbelievers. What could be more terroristic than 'Believe this or burn for an eternity,' the answer is nothing.
 * Brian Sapient, ABC's Nightline "Atheism vs. Christianity" Debate.

 * Religion IS a force for good when you take out the murder, mass genocide (committed by God as documented in the Bible), religious wars, burning witches at the stake, Ted Haggard, shooting abortion doctors, the Bible's promotion of slavery, pedophile priests, serial killing Christians gone wild, the churches' systematic oppression of women and minorities, aversion to protection against STDs and the spread of AIDS in 3rd world countries, creative and inconsistent interpretation of 'thou shalt not kill', take it all out and religion is a force for good.
 * Brian Sapient, ABC's Nightline "Atheism vs. Christianity" Debate.

 * On June 22nd [1633], in the morning, in the great hall of the Convent of Santa Maria Sopra Minerva, Galileo was found guilty of holding a false doctrine. He went down on his knees and both abjured and condemned his own errors. He swore never to argue such doctrines again. It was thus definitely confirmed that the sun did rotate around the earth... Santa Maria Sopra Minerva. Saint Mary Over Minerva. Power over wisdom.
 * John Ralston Saul, "Wisdom", in The Doubter's Companion

 * You don't have to believe in atheism, because atheism is based on REASON.
 * Manfred F. Schieder (1937 - ) From: "Rebirth of Reason" (Quotes: http://rebirthofreason.com/Spirit/Quotes/Author_537.shtml - Also mentioned several times on blogs and webpages.

 * I see little divinity about them or you. You talk to me of Christianity when you are in the act of hanging your enemies. Was there ever such blasphemous nonsense!
 * George Bernard Shaw, The Devil's Disciple.

 * Weyoun: Pagh wraiths, prophets — all this talk of gods strikes me as nothing more than superstitious nonsense. Damar: You believe the Founders are gods, don't you? Weyoun: That's different. Damar: In what way?' Weyoun: The Founders are gods.
 * "Tears of the Prophets", Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

 * Quark: There's a Bajoran convention on the station I didn't know about? Thanks, Odo. I need to call in more dabo girls. Odo: It's not a convention. They're from an orthodox spiritual order coming to support Vedek Winn's efforts to keep the Bajoran children out of school. Quark: Orthodox? In that case I'll need twice as many dabo girls.
 * "In the Hands of the Prophets", Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

T

 * As everybody's god, what will you do?" the doctor demanded. "You mean immediately?" asked the small god. "I will raise up prophets to make conflicting pronouncements that will inevitably be garbled in transcription, resulting in mutually exclusive definitions of orthodoxy from which the open-minded will flee in dismay … "… Also, I will be capricious. I'll reward and punish arbitrarily. I'll peek through bedroom windows and admonish what I see there, sometimes one thing, sometimes the opposite. I will have purposes men know nothing of, and when men begin to catch on to them, I will change them. This will convince some of your people that I am unreliable. "… Occasionally, I will do a conspicuous miracle to save one dying child while a thousand children starve elsewhere. This will convince sensible people I am perverse, and they will curse my name… "… I will be a sham, but not a snob. I will let every man, woman, or child, no matter how greedy or wicked, claim to have a personal relationship with me. In other words, I will be as arbitrary, inconsistent, ignorant, pushy, and common as humans are, and what more have they ever wanted in a god?
 * Sheri S. Tepper, "The Visitor".

 * Be comforted that we have each other to depend on! When waters rise and swallow crops, we count on one another to plant those crops again, to rebuild homes, to care for our sick! Some blame God and demand we make sacrifice to Him. If your village was being flooded would you, Erasmus, butcher your daughters like Abraham tried with Isaac, because some priest told you God demanded it? Or would you try to build canals to divert the water, understanding that there is a mechanism to why floods happen and no God has anything to do with it?
 * Brian Trent, Remembering Hypatia.

V

 * The truths of religion are never so well understood as by those who have lost the power of reasoning.
 * Voltaire, Dictionnaire Philosophique (1764).

W

 * Religions die when they are proven to be true. Science is the record of dead religions.
 * Oscar Wilde, Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young.

 * Christians are generally creepy people as a direct result of the dysfunctional dynamic of worshipping a dead naked hippie.
 * "Die Warzau: Engine Tour Shirt", 1995; quoted at Vertical Hold.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Irreligiousness


text:
User:Trublu

Jason Peper
Adding interwiki-links to de.wikiquote

de.wikipedia en.wikipedia de.wikiquote

title: User:Trublu


text:
User talk:Weaszel

--Aphaia 10:09, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

title: User talk:Weaszel


text:
User talk:203.45.185.32

—Jeremy Hanson 19:59, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

title: User talk:203.45.185.32


text:
Luigi Pirandello

Luigi Pirandello (28 June 1867 – 10 December 1936) was an Italian dramatist, novelist and short-story writer.

Quotes

 * Anyone can be heroic from time to time, but a gentleman is something which you have to be all the time. Which isn't easy.
 * The Pleasure of Honesty (1917), trans. William Murray

 * Woe to him who doesn't know how to wear his mask, be he king or pope!
 * Henry IV (1922), trans. Edward Storer

 * Così è (se vi pare)
 * So It Is (If You Think So)
 * Title of play (1916); also translated as It Is So, If You Think It Is.

 * E non le sembra già questa un'opinione?
 * Translation: Refusing to have an opinion is a way of having one, isn't it?
 * Each In His Own Way, Act I

Quotes about Pirandello

 * Some years ago, an American psychologist, Abraham Maslow, felt the same kind of instinctive revolt against the 'atmosphere' of Freudian psychology, with its emphasis on sickness and neurosis, and decided that he might obtain some equally interesting results if he studied extremely healthy people. He therefore looked around for the most cheerful and well-adjusted people he could find, and asked for their co-operation in his studies. he soon discovered and interesting fact: that most extremely healthy people frequently experience of intense affirmation and certainty; Maslow called these 'peak experiences.' No one had made this discovery before because it had never struck anyone that a science calling itself 'psychology' and professing to be a science of the human mind (not merely the sick mind), ought to form its estimate of human beings by taking into account healthy minds as well as sick ones. A sick man talks obsessively about his illness; a healthy man never talks about his health; for as Pirandello points out, we take happiness for granted, and only begin to question life when we are unhappy. Hence no psychologist ever made this simple and obvious discovery about peak experiences.
 * Colin Wilson, Introduction to the New Existentialism (1966), p. 15

title: Luigi Pirandello


text:
The Heart of the Matter

The Heart of the Matter (1948) is a novel by British author Graham Greene about Catholicism and moral change in the novel's police officer protagonist, Scobie.

Quotes

 * Why [...] do I love this place so much? Is it because here human nature hasn't had time to disguise itself? Nobody here could ever talk about a heaven on earth. Heaven remained rigidly in its proper place on the other side of death, while on this side flourished the injustices, the cruelties, the meanness that elsewhere people so cleverly hushed up. Here you could love human beings nearly as God loved them, knowing the worst: you didn't love a pose, a pretty dress, a sentiment artfully assumed.
 * Book 1, Part 1, ch. 1, sect. 5
 * Said by Scobie

 * Against the beautiful and the clever and the successful, one can wage a pitiless war, but not against the unattractive: then the millstone weighs on the breast.
 * Book 1, Part 1, ch. 2, sect. 2

 * Despair is the price one pays for setting oneself an impossible aim. It is, one is told, the unforgivable sin, but it is a sin the corrupt or evil man never practises. He always has hope. He never reaches the freezing-point of knowing absolute failure. Only the man of goodwill carries always in his heart this capacity for damnation.
 * Book 1, Part 1, ch. 2, sect. 4

 * The truth, he thought, has never been of any real value to any human being - it is a symbol for mathematicians and the philosophers to pursue. In human relations kindness and lies are worth a thousand truths.
 * Book 1, Part 1, ch. 2, sect. 4

 * Point me out the happy man and I will point you out either extreme egotism, evil - or else an absolute ignorance.
 * Book 2, Part 1, ch. 1, sect. 3

 * 'It's not really much good tearing out a page because you can see the place where it's been torn.' [...] 'You can pull a stamp out,' she said with terrible youthful clarity, 'and you don't know that it's ever been there.'
 * Book 2, Part 1, ch. 3, sect. 1
 * Said by Helen Rolt referring to her stamp collection

 * To start off happy," Harris said. "It must make an awful difference afterwards. Why, it might become a habit, mightn't it?"
 * Book 2, Part 1, ch. 2, sect. 3
 * Referring to childhood experiences

 * People talk about the courage of condemned men walking to the place of execution: sometimes it needs as much courage to walk with any kind of bearing towards another person’s habitual misery.
 * Book 2, Part 1, ch. 2, sect. 3

 * He felt the loyalty we feel to unhappiness - the sense that it is where we really belong.
 * Book. 2, Part 2, ch. 1, sect. 1

 * "Pity smouldered like decay at his heart. He would never rid himself of it. He knew from experience how passion died away and how love went, but pity always stayed. Nothing ever diminished pity. The conditions of life nurtured it. There was only a single person in the world who was unpitiable, oneself."
 * Book 2, Part 3, ch. 1, sect. 1

 * No human being can really understand another, and no one can arrange another's happiness.
 * Book 2, Part 3, ch. 1, sect. 1

 * He whispered, 'Oh God, I have deserted you. Do not desert me.'
 * Book 2, Part 3, ch. 1, sect. 1
 * Said by Scobie

 * God can wait, he thought: how can one love God at the expense of one of his creatures? Would a woman accept the love for which a child had to be sacrificed?
 * Book 2, Part 3, ch. 1, sect. 3

 * He entered the territory of lies without a passport for return.
 * Book 2, Part 3, ch. 2, sect. 1

 * His hilarity was like a scream from a crevasse.
 * Book 3, Part 1, ch. 1, sect. 1

 * He had read somewhere that love had been invented in the eleventh century by the troubadours. Why had they not left us with lust?"
 * Book 3, Part 1, ch. 2, sect. 1

 * One must be reasonable, he told himself, and recognize that despair doesn't last (is that true?), that love doesn't last (but isn't that the very reason that despair does?)[...]
 * Book 3, Part 1, ch. 2, sect. 2
 * Said by Scobie

 * 'You can look after yourself. You survive the cross every day. You can only suffer. You can never be lost. Admit that you must come second to these others.' And myself, he thought, [...] I must come last.
 * Book 3, Part 1, ch. 2, sect. 2
 * Said by Scobie to God

 * 'Waking up will be the worst. There's always a moment when one forgets that everything's different.
 * Book 3, Part 2, ch. 1, sect. 1
 * Said by Helen Rolt to Scobie

 * We are all of us resigned to death; it's life we aren't resigned to.
 * Book 3, Part 2, ch. 2, sect. 1
 * Said by Scobie

 * It isn't beauty that we love, he thought, it's failure - the failure to stay young for ever, the failure of nerves, the failure of the body. Beauty is like success: we can't love it for long.
 * Book 3, Part 2, ch. 3, sect. 2
 * Said by Scobie

 * She put her hand out beside her and touched the other pillow, as though perhaps after all there was one chance in a thousand that she was not alone, and if she were not alone now she would never be alone again.
 * Book 3, Part 3, ch. 1, sect. 1
 * Referring to Helen Rolt

title: The Heart of the Matter


text:
Paul Hackett

Paul Lewis Hackett III  (born 30 March 1962) is a trial lawyer and veteran of the Iraq War who unsuccessfully sought election to the United States Congress from the Second District of Ohio in the 2 August 2005, special election.

Quotes

 * With all that this country has given me, I felt it wasn't right for me to be enjoying life in Indian Hill when Marines were fighting and dying in Iraq.
 * Interview with the Cincinnati Enquirer.

 * We're not going to spread democracy at the business end of a M16 held by a 23 year old Marine.
 * Appearance on  the Colbert Report August 4th.

 * You take a 22-year-old American, you shoot at him all day long, you deprive him of sleep, you make him see his buddies being killed, he has their blood on his boots and blouse, and when you don't see perfection in his decisions you court-martial him? It's absurd.
 * Quoted by reporter Thomas Watkins for the Associated Press.

title: Paul Hackett


text:
User talk:EKMichigan

Thank you for the Paul Hackett article. I have added a category ("Political leaders") to it, as is common practice here. ~ MosheZadka (Talk) 04:41, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

title: User talk:EKMichigan


text:
User talk:69.132.224.162

~ MosheZadka (Talk) 04:52, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

title: User talk:69.132.224.162


text:
Ryan North

Ryan North (born October 20, 1980) is the creator and author of Dinosaur Comics, and co-creator of Whispered Apologies.

Quotes

 * Man, staying at home is for chumps! You could shake the man's hand! YOU COULD TOTALLY SMOOCH HIM MAYBE. maybe not but still!
 * Comment on LiveJournal

 * I collect power supplies like other men collect meaningful relationships! THAT IS TO SAY, AT THE RATE OF ABOUT ONE A YEAR
 * Comment on LiveJournal

 * If you find you are not understanding my explanation for a joke, hit "F5" on your browser and the page will refresh and I will explain it again.
 * Jokes Explained page

 * I speculate that the genesis of the chicken-joke lies in some situation such as the one illustrated above, but over time the original context of the joke was lost, which left the chicken sadly decontextualized.
 * Explaining jokes

 * They are "sexcellent". That is a pun for you, you will find lots of puns on the internet! Also: blonde jokes.
 * On Lesbian Robots kissing

 * Good luck distinguishing which sign is the REAL sign when my entire front lawn is covered with thousands of little green signs - each with a different number! Ahahahah! I'll be EVERY address in the whole freakin' township! And what are you gonna do about it? Hopefully, NOTHING!
 * E-mail to city hall

 * Don't worry, it's very clear that the painting was done by a human, most likely a human with one eye removed and a feverent if incorrect understanding of design and anatomy.
 * Blog comment

 * Of course it's easy to get on public transit! It's public transit.
 * Blog post

 * I saw The Mountain Ghost last night and they were really good but also scary! Actually they are called the Mountain GOATS and do not feature scary g-g-g-ghosts. Luckily.
 * Blog post

 * I'm totally applying assumed Creative Commons rights.
 * Blog post

 * I'm suddenly worried people will think that I believe their religion can be summed up on four sex-obsessed sentences.
 * Comment

 * You're supposed to whore yourself out! Nobody will judge you! ACTUALLY EVERYONE WILL JUDGE YOU THAT'S HOW THE SYSTEM WORKS
 * Truth and Beauty Bombs comment

 * We're all already aware of boobies; it is the general state of most people in North America! THANKS, MEDIA AND THE MALE GAZE
 * Comment

 * Strange things in the neighbourhood (partial list):
 * seeing things running through head
 * invisible man sleeping in bed
 * from the 'songs in list format' meme Ryan invented

 * Failure is just success rounded down.
 * Comic dialogue

title: Ryan North


text:
User talk:Phoenix2BaseCamp

~ MosheZadka (Talk) 05:43, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

title: User talk:Phoenix2BaseCamp


text:
User talk:Ctdunstan~enwikiquote

Thanks for your contribution to Dave Chappelle. Usually, "minor" edits are reserved for mere format or typo fixes, not addition of quotes — just for future reference. Thanks ~ MosheZadka (Talk) 07:39, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

Your account will be renamed
Hello,

The developer team at Wikimedia is making some changes to how accounts work, as part of our on-going efforts to provide new and better tools for our users like cross-wiki notifications. These changes will mean you have the same account name everywhere. This will let us give you new features that will help you edit and discuss better, and allow more flexible user permissions for tools. One of the side-effects of this is that user accounts will now have to be unique across all 900 Wikimedia wikis. See the announcement for more information.

Unfortunately, your account clashes with another account also called Ctdunstan. To make sure that both of you can use all Wikimedia projects in future, we have reserved the name Ctdunstan~enwikiquote that only you will have. If you like it, you don't have to do anything. If you do not like it, you can pick out a different name.

Your account will still work as before, and you will be credited for all your edits made so far, but you will have to use the new account name when you log in.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

Yours, Keegan Peterzell Community Liaison, Wikimedia Foundation 23:21, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Renamed
 This account has been renamed as part of single-user login finalisation. If you own this account you can |log in using your previous username and password for more information. If you do not like this account's new name, you can choose your own using this form after logging in: . -- Keegan (WMF) (talk) 05:45, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

title: User talk:Ctdunstan~enwikiquote


text:
User talk:195.242.46.242

Hi. I reverted your edits to Boris Spassky. As a quote collection, wikiquote tries hard to keep the original quote intact, and clearly seperating explanatory notes from it, which is why we use the sub-bullet style. Thanks ~ MosheZadka (Talk) 08:44, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

title: User talk:195.242.46.242


text:
Talk:L. Ron Hubbard

/Archive 1

What about
What about the one where he said he was the greatest fiction writer since St Peter? —This unsigned comment is by 80.47.72.237 (talk • contribs).
 * Source? -- Cirt (talk) 21:05, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

 * What is source for "they never show'd me a non criminal mind" - L Ron Hubbard / LRH
 * There is this, "The FBI have never shown me a non-criminal mind" (Bare-faced messiah: Chapter 13 Apostle of the Main Chance); however the "they never ... " quote seems to have a bit of steam in some zones? Text mdnp (talk) 04:29, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

title: Talk:L. Ron Hubbard