Inquisition Quotes

• A defence in the Inquisition is of little use to the prisoner, for a suspicion only is deemed sufficient cause of condemnation, and the greater his wealth the greater his danger.

  John Foxe

  Use, Littles, Wealth

  John Foxe (2012). “Foxe's Book Of Martyrs”, p.89, Jazzybee Verlag

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• The principle of the Inquisition was murderous. . . . The popes were not only murderers in the great style, but they also made murder a legal basis of the Christian Church and a condition of salvation.

  Lord Acton

  Christian, Style, Religion

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• If Galileo had said in verse that the world moved, the inquisition might have let him alone.

  Thomas Hardy

  Poetry, World, Might

  Thomas Hardy (1998). “Hardy: Selected Poems”, p.200, Penguin

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• Many argue that Christianity is "different" from other religions - that it is primarily about love of one's fellow man. The Crusades, The Inquisition, Calvin's Geneva all prove that this is not the case. These events were pre-eminently about obedience to authority.

  Andrew Bernstein

  Men, Atheism, Fellow Man

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• It is a tragic hour, that hour when we are finally driven to reckon with ourselves, when every avenue of mental distraction has been cut off and our own life and all its ineffaceable failures closes about us like the walls of that old torture chamber of the Inquisition.

  Willa Cather

  Wall, Failure, Cutting

  Willa Cather (2016). “The First Willa Cather MEGAPACK®: 50 Classic Short Works”, p.134, Wildside Press LLC

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• It is in the name of Jesus, himself become God, that fanaticism ignominiously condemned to the stake men like Giodano Bruno, Vanini, Étienne Dolet, John Huss, Savanarola, and numerous other heroic victims; that the Inquisition ordered Galileo to belie his conscience; that thousands and thousands of unfortunates accused of witchcraft were burnt alive in popular ceremonies; it was with the express benediction of Pope Gregory XIII that the butchery of St. Bartholomew drenched Paris in blood.

  Camille Flammarion

  Religious, Jesus, Men

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• Sit peacefully in a church and think of church history: witchburning perhaps, or child abuse, genocide, the amassing of disgusting wealth, the repression of women, inquisitions, castrating child choir singers, the denial of Santa Claus and the support of fascists in power.

  Kaz Cooke

  Children, Thinking, Support

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• Christianity ... has produced the iniquities of the Inquisition, the egotism and celibacy of the monasteries, the fury of religious wars, the ferocity of the Hussite, of the Catholic, of the Puritan, of the Spaniard, of the Irish Orangeman and of the Irish Papist; it has divided families, alienated friends, lighted the torch of civil war, and borne the virgin and the greybeard to the burning pile, broken delicate limbs upon the wheel and wrung the souls and bodies of innocent creatures on the rack; all this it has done, and done in the name of God.

  Ouida

  Religious, War, Soul And Body

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• In Italy, the Inquisition was condemning people to death until the end of the eighteenth century, and inquisitional torture was not abolished in the Catholic Church until 1816. The last bastion of support for the reality of witchcraft and the necessity of punishment has been the Christian churches.

  Carl Sagan

  Christian, Atheist, Reality

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark”, p.528, Ballantine Books

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• If a man wishes to have God recognized in the constitution of our country, let him read the history of the Inquisition, and let him remember that hundreds of millions of men, women, and children have been sacrificed to placate the wrath, or win the approbation of this god.

  Robert Green Ingersoll

  Country, Religious, Children

  Robert Green Ingersoll (1902). “The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll: Miscellany”

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• No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!

  Neil Innes

  Spanish Inquisition

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• Now Christianity sounded good at first to the naive convert. Love, peace and charity -
  what's wrong with that? I'll tell you what's wrong - a series of unprecedented
  horrors perpetrated by so-called Christians: The Inquisition, the Conquistadores,
  the American Indian wars, slavery, Hiroshima and the present-day Bible Belt.

  William S. Burroughs

  Christian, War, Charity

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• From Augustine down, theologians have tried to compel people to accept their special interpretation of the Scripture, and the tortures of the inquisition, the rack, the thumb-screw, the stake, the persecutions of witchcraft, the whipping of naked women through the streets of Boston, banishment, trials of heresy, the halter about Garrison's neck, Lovejoy's death, the branding of Captain Walker, shouts of infidel and atheist, have all been for this purpose.

  Matilda Joslyn Gage

  Atheist, Boston, People

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan Brownell Anthony, Matilda Joslyn Gage (1979). “History of Woman Suffrage”, Ayer Company Pub

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• A prisoner in the Inquisition is never allowed to see the face of his accuser, or of the witnesses against him, but every method is taken by threats and tortures, to oblige him to accuse himself, and by that means corroborate their evidence.

  John Foxe

  Taken, Mean, Faces

  John Foxe, William Byron Forbush (2004). “Foxe's Book of Martyrs”, p.79, Hendrickson Publishers

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• I read in the newspaper that the Catholic Church finally decided that it had been theologically improper to try to convert the Jews. Whoops! Sorry for all those inquisitions, crusades, and autos-da-fe. Previous popes were wrong - infallible, perhaps, but wrong.

  Alan Dershowitz

  Sorry, Catholic, Religion

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• From the Crusades, to the Inquisition, to American politics--the name of Jesus had been hijacked as an ally in all kinds of power struggles. Since the beginning of time, the ignorant had always screamed the loudest, herding the unsuspecting masses and forcing them to do their bidding. They defended their worldly desires by citing Scripture they did not understand. They celebrated their intolerance as proof of their convictions. Now, after all these years, mankind had finally managed to utterly erode everything that had once been so beautiful about Jesus.

  Dan Brown

  Beautiful, Jesus, Struggle

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• You find this curious fact, that the more intense has been the religion of any period and more profound has been the dogmatic belief, the greater has been the cruelty and the worse has been the state of affairs. In the so called age of faith, when men really did believe the Christian religion in all its completeness, there was the Inquisition, with its tortures; there were millions of unfortunate women burnt as witches; and there was every kind of cruelty practised upon all sorts of people in the name of religion.

  Bertrand Russell

  Christian, Believe, Men

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• After Galileo was convicted (for heresy by the Spanish Inquisition) for his theory that the Earth revolved around the sun, ... he replied, `Still, the Earth is moving.'

  Junichiro Koizumi

  Moving, Earth, Sun

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• Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition.

  Graham Chapman

  Peace, Holy Grail, Spanish Inquisition

  "Monty Python's Flying Circus: The Spanish Inquisition". TV Series, www.imdb.com. 1970.

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• It is of interest to note that most secular humanists continue to belabor the horrors of the Inquisition in order to establish the moral depravity of Christianity.

  Guenter Lewy

  Christian, Religious, Order

  Guenter Lewy (1996). “Why America Needs Religion: Secular Modernity and Its Discontents”, p.21, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing

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• Cultivate Curiosity. If you really want to grow in your lifetime, learn to be as inquisitive as a child. Curious people are never bored, and for them life becomes an unending study of joy.

  Tony Robbins

  Life, Motivational, Success

  FaceBook post by Tony Robbins from Mar 04, 2015

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• In the social equation, the value of a single life is nil; in the cosmic equation, it is infinite... Not only communism, but any political movement which implicitly relies on purely utilitarian ethics, must become a victim to the same fatal error. It is a fallacy as naïve as a mathematical teaser, and yet its consequences lead straight to Goya's Disasters, to the reign of the guillotine, the torture chambers of the Inquisition, or the cellars of the Lubianka.

  Arthur Koestler

  Errors, Political, Single Life

  Arthur Koestler (1952). “Arrow in the blue: an autobiography”

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• I would meet you upon this honestly. I that was near your heart was removed therefrom To lose beauty in terror, terror in inquisition. I have lost my passion: why should I need to keep it Since what is kept must be adulterated? I have lost my sight, smell, hearing, taste and touch: How should I use them for your closer contact?

  T. S. Eliot

  Passion, Heart, Sight

  T.S. Eliot (2011). “The Complete Poems and Plays of T. S. Eliot”, p.31, Faber & Faber

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• I subject my sentences and the words to a kind of Grand Inquisition.

  Lynne Tillman

  Kind, Sentences, Subjects

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• I feel like Galileo going before the Inquisition to explain that the Sun doesn't revolve around the Earth. I hope I have more success.

  Ken Livingstone

  Earth, Sun, Feels

  1999 Before his interview for selection as Labour's nominee for Mayor of London

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