Best 6608 quotes in «religious quotes» category

These [religious ideas] are given out as teachings, are not precipitates of experience or end-results of thinking: they are illusions, fullfilments of the oldest, strongest and most urgent wishes of mankind.

The sense of Islam as a threatening Other - with Muslims depicted as fanatical, violent, lustful, irrational - develops during the colonial period in what I called Orientalism. The study of the Other has a lot to do with the control and dominance of Europe and the West generally in the Islamic world. And it has persisted because it's based very, very deeply in religious roots, where Islam is seen as a kind of competitor of Christianity.

The separation of church and state can sometimes be frustrating for women and men of deep religious faith. They may be tempted to misuse government in order to impose a value which they cannot persuade others to accept. But once we succumb to that temptation, we step onto a slippery slope where everyone's freedom is at risk.

The serious person becomes handicapped, he creates barriers. He cannot dance, he cannot sing, he cannot celebrate. The very dimension of celebration disappears from his life. He becomes desert-like. And if you are a desert, you can go on thinking and pretending that you are religious but you are not.

The shamrock is a religious symbol. St. Patrick said the leaves represented the trinity: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. That's why four leaf clovers are so lucky, you get a bonus Jesus.

The sight of nature fascinates, the family tie has a sweet enchantment and patriotism gives the religious spirit a fiery devotion to the powers that it reveres.

The signs of the antichrist spirit are clear. They emerge in this fashion: A significant minority then an actual majority, of the people in a society begin to throw off the restraints of history, then the restraints of written law, then accepted standards of morality, then established religion, and, finally God Himself.

The short lesson that comes out of long experience in political agitation is something like this: all the motive power in all of these movements is the instinct of religious feeling. All the obstruction comes from attempting to rely on anything else. Conciliation is the enemy.

The slightest force, when it is applied to assist and guide the natural descent of its object, operates with irresistible weight; and Jovian had the good fortune to embrace the religious opinions which were supported by the spirit of the times and the zeal and numbers of the most powerful sect. Under his reign, Christianity obtained an easy and lasting victory; and, as soon as the smile of royal patronage was withdrawn, the genius of Paganism, which had been fondly raised and cherished by the arts of Julian, sunk irrecoverably in the dust.

The skeptical relativist attempt to mandate a naked public square is undemocratic. It is also a danger to democracy.

The so-called godly man may be more likely to do serious wrong than a man who deeply questions himself. The 'godly man' often zealously follows religious precepts that, in the end, justify an unjust injury to others, while the questioning man, addressing his own conscience, may have the better chance to consider all the circumstances and come to the just decision.

The soldier, above all other men, is required to perform the highest act of religious offering-sacrifice. In battle and in the face of danger and death he discloses those divine attributes which his amke gave when he created in his own image. No physical courage and no brute instincts can take the place of the divine annunciation and spiritual gift which will alone sustain him.

The solution for mankind is of a spiritual nature. It is not a political or religious solution. It's the ability to love each other. That's the only solution I see.

The soldier, above all other men, is required to practice the greatest act of religious training - sacrifice.

The soul that loves God has its rest in God and in God alone. In all the paths that men walk in in the world, they do not attain peace until they draw nigh to hope in God.

The soul is forever being. It is being what it is being, regardless of what the body is doing, not because of what it's doing. If you think your life is about doingness, you do not understand what you are about.

The soul that has come to know God fully no longer desires anything else, nor does it attach itself to anything on the earth; and if you put before it a kingdom, it would not desire it, for the love of God gives such sweetness and joy to the soul that even the life of a king can no longer give it any sweetness.

The spirit of religious persecution is not the special failing of any particular faith, but springs eternal in the human breast.

The spirit of religious totalitarianism is abroad in the world; it is in the very air we breathe today in this land. Everywhere are those who claim to have a corner on righteousness, on direct access to God ... The bigots of the world are having a heyday.

The spiritual experience isn’t one of filling ourselves up— with either religious or intellectual beliefs—but of emptying ourselves so that we can experience what is, directly, unfiltered.

The standpoint of the man who relies on religious experience for capturing Reality must always remain individual and incommunicable.

The state, frankly, could care less. Historically, the state has been able to use any religious point of view for its own ends. . . . The examples of government misusing religion are endless.

The State may justify a limitation on religious liberty by showing it is essential to accomplish an overriding governmental interest.

The State is the altar of political freedom and, like the religious altar, it is maintained for the purpose of human sacrifice.

The story of the betrayal of Jesus by Judas gave a moral and religious rationale to anti-Jewish sentiment, and that's what made it persistent and vicious.

The storms in my life have become workshops where I can practice my faith in God's sovereignty.

The strength of a country is the strength of its religious convictions.

The strongest wish of a vast number of earnest men and women to-day is for a basis of religious belief which shall rest, not upon tradition or external authority or historical evidence, but upon the ascertainable facts of human experience. The craving for immediacy, which we have seen to be characteristic of all mysticism, now takes the form of a desire to establish the validity of the God-consciousness as a normal part of the healthy inner life.

The struggle for democracy has to be maintained on as many fronts as culture has aspects: political, economic, international, educational, scientific and artistic, religious.

The suicide-bombing community is not absolutely 100 percent religious, but it is pretty nearly 100 percent religious.

The sun meets not the springing bud that stretches towards him with half the certainty that God, the source of all good, communicates himself to the soul that longs to partake of him.

The Swaraj of my dream recognizes no race or religious distinctions.

The Supreme Court's 1947 decision which introduced the wall of separation between church and state 'has fueled a movement to sterilize anything in American public life from religion.'

The surrender of oneself to a stronger power, the unification of one's own movements with the movements of the whole is what makes dance religious and lets it become a service of God.

The supreme satisfaction is to be able to despise one's neighbor and this fact goes far to account for religious intolerance. It is evidently consoling to reflect that the people next door are headed for hell.

The Supreme Court refuses to abandon its convoluted Lemon test. The Lemon test has created havoc, misunderstanding, and hostility toward religion.

The take-home message is that we should blame religion itself, not religious extremism - as though that were some kind of terrible perversion of real, decent religion. Voltaire got it right long ago: 'Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.' So did Bertrand Russell: 'Many people would sooner die than think. In fact they do.

The teaching of their ancient belief is filled with truth for the present day. Its profound sense of justice, nation to nation, man to man, is an essential part of every religious and social order. The health of our society depends upon a deep and abiding respect for the basic commandments of the God of Israel.

...the tale that's told for no other reason but companionship, which is another (and my favorite) definition of literature, the tale that's told for companionship and to teach something religious, of religious reverence, about real life, in this real world which literature should (and here does) reflect.

The targets of this story are not wayward sinners but religious people who do everything the Bible requires. Jesus is pleading not so much with immoral outsiders as with moral insiders. H wants to show them their blindness, narrowness, and self righteousness, and how these things are destroying both their own souls and the lives of the people around them.

The tendency to claim God as an ally for our partisan value and ends is the source of all religious fanaticism.

The term religious cleansing is an accurate and effective way of expressing the current hostility and bigotry toward all civic expressions of religion... these religious cleansers use political and legal means of containment. They are America's new anti-faith bigots.

The test of every religious, political, or educational system, is the man which it forms. If a system injures the intelligence it is bad. If it injures the character it is vicious. If it injures the conscience it is criminal.

The tedious and convoluted reasoning behind the Supreme Court's ongoing project to expunge all references to God from the public domain.

The theory that religion is a force for peace, often heard among the religious right and its allies today, does not fit the facts of history.

"The Theory of Everything" is an extraordinary story because [Jane Hawing] was incredibly religious and [Stephen Hawking] was an atheist, so you have this conflict both on a domestic level between a couple in a difficult situation but also this bigger conflict of science versus religion, so it's a really fascinating project.

The territorial state is such an ancient form of society - here in Europe it dates back thousands of years - that it is now protected by the sanctity of age and the glory of tradition. A strong religious feeling mingles with the respect and the devotion to the fatherland.

The test of every religious, political, or educational system is the man that it forms.

The test of faith is whether I can make space for difference. Can I recognize God's image in someone who is not in my image, who language, faith, ideal, are different from mine? If I cannot, then I have made God in my image instead of allowing him to remake me in his.

The tests of life are to make, not break us. Trouble may demolish a man's business but build up his character. The blow at the outward man may be the greatest blessing to the inner man.