Religion In Society Quotes - Page 2

• Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet.

  Napoleon Bonaparte

  Religious, Atheist, People

  81 Copy quote

• Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?

  Epicurus

  Atheist, Faith Religion, Omnipotence

  36 Copy quote

• There is in every village a torch - the teacher; and an extinguisher - the priest.

  Victor Hugo

  Teacher, Atheist, Religion

  "The History of a Crime". Book by Victor Hugo, 1877.

  23 Copy quote

  Show source

• Some of you say religion makes people happy. So does laughing gas.

  Clarence Darrow

  People, Laughing, Religion

  Clarence Darrow's remarks at a debate with religious leaders in Kansas City, as quoted in a Emanuel Haldeman-Julius' eulogy for Clarence Darrow, 1938.

  28 Copy quote

  Show source

• This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it.

  John Adams

  Religious, Atheist, If There Is A God

  John Adams, Abigail Adams, Thomas Jefferson (1988). “The Adams-Jefferson Letters: The Complete Correspondence Between Thomas Jefferson and Abigail and John Adams”

  38 Copy quote

  Show source

• The way to see by Faith is to shut the Eye of Reason.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Faith, Spiritual, Religious

  Benjamin Franklin (1987). “Poor Richard's Almanack: Being the Choicest Morsels of Wisdom, Written During the Years of the Almanack's Publication”, p.16, Peter Pauper Press, Inc.

  62 Copy quote

  Show source

• Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?

  Epicurus

  God, Spiritual, Religious

  460 Copy quote

• 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, Faith Religion

  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

  28 Copy quote

  Show source

• Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.

  Epicurus

  Atheist, Omnipotence, If There Is A God

  41 Copy quote

• Religion is the most malevolent of all mind viruses.

  Arthur C. Clarke

  Atheist, Mind, Religion

  Interview with Tasha Robinson, www.avclub.com. February 18, 2004.

  24 Copy quote

  Show source

• I'd take the awe of understanding over the awe of ignorance any day.

  Douglas Adams

  Inspirational, Life, Atheist

  Douglas Adams, Stephen Fry (2012). “The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time”, p.87, Pan Macmillan

  54 Copy quote

  Show source

• I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Atheist, Religion, President

  "Christianity: the One, the Many: What Christianity Might Have Been and Could Still Become, Volume 1". Book by John F. Nash (p. 11), February 14, 2008.

  13 Copy quote

  Show source

• Lighthouses are more helpful than churches.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Spiritual, Religious, Atheist

  James C. Humes, Benjamin Franklin (1995). “The wit and wisdom of Benjamin Franklin: a treasury of more than 900 quotations and anecdotes”, Harpercollins

  117 Copy quote

  Show source

• Gods are fragile things, they may be killed by a whiff of science or a dose of common sense.

  Chapman Cohen

  Spiritual, Religious, Atheist

  "An Anthology of Atheism and Rationalism" by Gordon Stein, Prometheus Books, (p. 258), 1980.

  96 Copy quote

  Show source

• I don't believe in God because I don't believe in Mother Goose.

  Clarence Darrow

  Death, Mother, Atheist

  Speech, Toronto, Canada, 1930

  91 Copy quote

  Show source

• Religion is an illusion and it derives its strength from the fact that it falls in with our instinctual desires.

  Sigmund Freud

  Strength, Death, Spiritual

  Sigmund Freud (1952). “Major Works”

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• If I were not an atheist, I would believe in a God who would choose to save people on the basis of the totality of their lives and not the pattern of their words. I think he would prefer an honest and righteous atheist to a TV preacher whose every word is God, God, God and whose every deed is foul, foul, foul.

  Isaac Asimov

  Spiritual, Atheist, Fear

  Isaac Asimov (2009). “I, Asimov: A Memoir”, p.481, Bantam

  70 Copy quote

  Show source
• 

  Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

  John Adams

  Bible, God, Religious

  John Adams, Charles Francis Adams (1854). “Works: with a life of the author”, p.229

  355 Copy quote

  Show source

• A myth is a religion in which no one any longer believes.

  James Kern Feibleman

  Atheist, Believe, Cynical

  Understanding Philosophy ch. 3 (1973)

  24 Copy quote

  Show source

• Prayer is of no avail. The lightning falls on the just and the unjust in accordance with natural laws.

  Robert Green Ingersoll

  Prayer, Fall, Law

  10 Copy quote

• 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

  20 Copy quote

  Show source

• Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and not tried.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Christian, Wisdom, Religious

  "Points of friction". Book by Agnes Repplier, "Consolations of the Conservative", 1920.

  149 Copy quote

  Show source

• Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived.

  Isaac Asimov

  Death, Atheist, If There Is A God

  Isaac Asimov (1995). “Yours, Isaac Asimov: A Lifetime of Letters”, Doubleday Books

  78 Copy quote

  Show source

• Men rarely if ever dream up a god superior to themselves. Most gods have the manners and morals of a spoiled child.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Dream, Atheist, Children

  Robert A. Heinlein (1987). “Time Enough for Love”, p.227, Penguin

  16 Copy quote

  Show source

• The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.

  Richard Dawkins

  God, Religious, Atheist

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

  323 Copy quote

  Show source