Faith Religion Quotes

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  Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Inspirational, Motivational, Change

  Atlanta Magazine, April 2008.

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• What has been the effect of [religious] coercion? To make one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites. To support roguery and error all over the earth.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Religious, Hypocrite, Errors

  Thomas Jefferson, Richard Holland Johnston, Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association of the United States “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson”

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• But a short time elapsed after the death of the great reformer of the Jewish religion, before his principles were departed from by those who professed to be his special servants, and perverted into an engine for enslaving mankind, and aggrandizing their oppressors in Church and State.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Religious, Departed, Special

  Thomas Jefferson (1853). “The writings of Thomas Jefferson: being his autobiography, correspondence, reports, messages, addresses, and other writings, official and private”, p.492

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• Today Christians ... stand at the head of [this country]... I pledge that I never will tie myself to parties who want to destroy Christianity .. We want to fill our culture again with the Christian spirit ... We want to burn out all the recent immoral developments in literature, in the theater, and in the press - in short, we want to burn out the poison of immorality which has entered into our whole life and culture as a result of liberal excess during the past ... (few) years.

  Adolf Hitler

  Christian, Country, Religious

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• [N]o religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.

  James Madison

  Religious, Atheist, Kgb

  James Madison (1836). “The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution: As Recommended by the General Convention at Philadelphia in 1787. Together with the Journal of the Federal Convention, Luther Martin's Letter, Yates's Minutes, Congressional Opinions, Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions of '98-'99, and Other Illustrations of the Constitution”, p.204

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• I wish it (Christianity) were more productive of good works ... I mean real good works ... not holy day keeping, sermon-hearing ... or making long prayers, filled with flatteries and compliments despised by wise men, and much less capable of pleasing the Deity.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Wise, Religious, Prayer

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• Secular schools can never be tolerated because such a school has no religious instruction and a general moral instruction without a religious foundation is built on air; consequently, all character training and religion must be derived from faith . . . We need believing people.

  Adolf Hitler

  Religious, Believe, School

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• [All religious sects] dread the advance of science as witches do the approach of daylight; and scowl on the fatal harbinger announcing the subversion of the duperies in which they live.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Religious, Daylight, Witch

  Thomas Jefferson (1964). “The Jefferson Bible: With the Annotated Commentaries on Religion of Thomas Jefferson”

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• 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

  Atheist, Atheism, Puff

  Douglas Adams (2012). “The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Trilogy of Five”, p.47, Pan Macmillan

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• Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise.... During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less, in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in laity; in both, superstition, bigotry, and persecution.

  James Madison

  Religious, Atheist, Ignorance

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• The God of the Old testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction.

  Richard Dawkins

  God, Religious, Atheist

  Richard Dawkins (2008). “The God Delusion”, p.51, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• The divinity of Jesus is made a convenient cover for absurdity. Nowhere in the Gospels do we find a precept for Creeds, Confessions, Oaths, Doctrines, and whole carloads of other foolish trumpery that we find in Christianity.

  John Adams

  Jesus, Atheism, Doctrine

  "Fictional character: John Adams". "Spirit", Book by William Edelen, 1989.

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• But how has it happened that millions of fables, tales, legends have been blended with both Jewish and Christian revelation that have made them the most bloody religion that ever existed?

  John Adams

  Christian, Religious, Legends

  John Adams, Charles Francis Adams (1856). “The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations”, p.235

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• The office of reformer of the superstitions of a nation is ever dangerous.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Office, Superstitions, Separation Of Church And State

  Thomas Jefferson (1854). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence, contin. Reports and opinions while Secretary of State”, p.167

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• Today Christians... stand at the head of Germany... We want to fill our culture again with the Christian Spirit.

  Adolf Hitler

  Christian, Germany, Culture

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• ...It would be more consistent that we call [the Bible] the work of a demon than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind.

  Thomas Paine

  Atheist, Atheism, Debauchery

  Thomas Paine “The Writings of Thomas Paine”, Jazzybee Verlag

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• The question before the human race is, whether the God of nature shall govern the world by his own laws, or whether priests and kings shall rule it by fictitious miracles?

  John Adams

  Kings, Race, Law

  John Adams, Abigail Adams, Thomas Jefferson (1971). “The Adams-Jefferson letters: the complete correspondence between Thomas Jefferson and Abigail and John Adams”, Touchstone

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• It was the schoolboy who said, ""Faith is believing what you know ain't so.""

  Mark Twain

  Faith, Atheist, Believe

  Following the Equator ch. 12, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar" (1897)

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• Preachers dread the advance of science as witches do the approach of daylight.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Daylight, Witch, Founding Fathers Religion

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• On the dogmas of religion, as distinguished from moral principles, all mankind, from the beginning of the world to this day, have been quarrelling, fighting, burning and torturing one another, for abstractions unintelligible to themselves and to all others, and absolutely beyond the comprehension of the human mind.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Religious, Fighting, Mind

  Thomas Jefferson (2010). “The Works of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence and Papers, 1816-1826”, p.42, Cosimo, Inc.

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• The clergy ... believe that any portion of power confided to me [as President] 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

  Religious, Believe, Men

  Thomas Jefferson (1900). “The Life and Writings of ...”

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• The hocus-pocus phantasm of a God, like another Cerberus, with one body and three heads, had its birth and growth in the blood of thousands and thousands of martyrs.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Religious, Blood, Growth

  Thomas Jefferson (2011). “Jefferson on Freedom: Wisdom, Advice, and Hints on Freedom, Democracy, and the American Way”, p.39, Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.

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• Among the sayings and discourses imputed to him (i.e. Jesus) by his biographers, I find many passages of fine imagination, correct morality, and of the most lovely benevolence; and others again of so much ignorance, so much absurdity, so much untruth, charlatanism, and imposture, as to pronounce it impossible that such contradictions should have proceeded from the same being.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Religious, Jesus, Ignorance

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• The Bible: a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalise mankind.

  Thomas Paine

  Atheist, Atheism, Wickedness

  Thomas Paine (1861). “The Age of Reason, etc”, p.7

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• We were convinced that the people need and require this faith. We have therefore undertaken the fight against the atheistic movement, and that not merely with a few theoretical declarations; we have stamped it out.

  Adolf Hitler

  Atheist, Fighting, People

  Adolf Hitler (1942). “The Speeches of Adolf Hitler: April 1922-August 1939”

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