Practical Religion Quotes

In the domain of true religion, mere book-learning has no right to enter. ~ Abhijit Naskar

There is a world of practical religion in simply being considerate of others. ~ Roger Babson

It will not do merely to listen to great principles. You must apply them in the practical field, turn them into constant practice. What will be the good of cramming the high - sounding dicta of the scriptures? You have first to grasp the teachings of the Shastras, and then to work them out in practical life. Do you understand? This is called practical religion. ~ Swami Vivekananda

We hear all around us about practical religion, and analysing all that, we find that it can be brought down to one conception - charity to our fellow beings. ~ Swami Vivekananda

It is always for greater joy that you give up the lesser. This is practical religion-the attainment of freedom, renunciation. Renounce the lower so that you may get the higher. Renounce! Renounce! Sacrifice! Give up! Not for zero. Not for nothing. But to get the higher. ~ Swami Vivekananda

Practical religion consists in doing good: and the only way of serving God is that of endeavoring to make His creation happy. All preaching that has not this for its object is nonsense and hypocrisy. ~ Thomas Paine

We read many books, but that does not bring us knowledge. We may read all the Bibles in the world, but that will not give us religion. Theoretical religion is easy enough to get, any one may get that. What we want is practical religion. ~ Swami Vivekananda

Mark, therefore, the ordinary theory of practical religion, what it leads to. Charity is great, but the moment you say it is all, you run the risk of running into materialism. It is not religion. It is no better than atheism - a little less. ~ Swami Vivekananda

Next to praying there is nothing so important in practical religion as Bible reading. By reading that book we may learn what to believe, what to be, and what to do; how to live with comfort, and how to die in peace.
Happy is that man who possesses a Bible! Happier still is he who reads it! Happiest of all is he who not only reads it, but obeys it, and makes it the rule of his faith and practice! ~ J.C. Ryle

To realize the spirit as spirit is practical religion. Everything else is good so far as it leads to this one grand idea. ~ Swami Vivekananda

Lived religion is a very different thing from strict textual analysis. Very few people of any faith live their lives as literalist interpretations of scripture. Many people have little or no knowledge of scripture at all. Many others who have more knowledge choose to interpret what they know in ways that are convenient, or that fit their own moral sense of what is good. Still others view their religion as a kind of self-accepted ethnicity, but live lives utterly divorced from any sense of faith. ~ Mohsin Hamid

If truth were told, most of us spend longer each day on personal cleanliness than on practical godliness. ~ Alistair Begg

Our religion vulgarly stands on numbers of believers. Whenever the appeal is made
no matter how indirectly
to numbers, proclamation is then and there made, that religion is not. He that finds God a sweet, enveloping presence, who shall dare to come in? ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

How can there be pride in a contrite heart? Humility is the earliest fruit of religion. ~ Hosea Ballou

The firm of Brotherhood's believed in ideal conditions for their staff. It was their pet form of practical Christianity; in addition to which, it looked very well in their advertising literature and was a formidable weapon against the trade unions. Not, of course, that Brotherhoods' had the slightest objection to trade unions as such. They had merely discovered that comfortable and well-fed people are constitutionally disinclined for united action of any sort - a fact which explains the asinine meekness of the income-tax payer. ~ Dorothy L. Sayers

I grew up in a Christian home. The strictness comes with religion in general. Whether you grew up Jewish or Orthodox Jewish or Muslim, there are certain rules and regulations. But my parents instilled in me the importance of defining God for yourself. ~ Vera Farmiga

Baseball is a religion in my classroom. It's a very important part of life, baseball. ~ Rafe Esquith

Where there are people, there is injustice, and that is not God's design. It may not be our fault, but it is our fight. Let us do our part by holding up our corners. ~ F. Willis Johnson

I think they'd barely recognize us as brothers and sisters. If we told them, church is on Sundays, and we have an awesome band...if the found out 1/6th of the earth's population claimed to be Christians, I'm not sure they could reconcile the suffering happening on our watch while we're living in excess...

But listen, early church, we have a monthly event called 'Mocha chicks', we have choir practice every Wednesday, we organize retreats with door prizes, we're raising $3 million for an outdoor amphitheater, we have catchy t-shirts, we don't smoke or say the f-word, we go to bible study every semester...

the local church would be the heartbeat of the city. ~ Jen Hatmaker

The problem is that most people, most of the time, are desperate to believe ridiculous and divisive ideas for patently emotional reasons,and while rarely explicit what they're really worried about is death ~ Sam Harris

Nobody needs to go anywhere else. We are all, if we only knew it, already there. If I only knew who in fact I am, I should cease to behave as what I think I am; and if I stopped behaving as what I think I am, I should know who I am. What in fact I am, if only the Manichee I think I am would allow me to know it, is the reconciliation of yes and no lived out in total acceptance and the blessed experience of Not-Two. In religion all words are dirty words. Anybody who gets eloquent about Buddha, or God, or Christ, ought to have his mouth washed out with carbolic soap. ~ Aldous Huxley

People who follow their religion to the letter of the law are just silly. I mean, I want to tell Hasidic Jews I promise you, God will not mind if you wear a nice cotton blend in the summer. ~ Sarah Silverman

Just how would someone go about stealing your mind? ~ Steven A. Moore

I don't fly on account of my religion. I'm a devout coward. ~ Henny Youngman

I don't believe in gods, only in religion. ~ K.J. Parker

It was his opinion that a man had to wait until he was dead to know the meaning of God, unless he happened to have known the sea in his youth. ~ James A. Michener

One nationality supresses another. One religion claimsto be the exclusive way to truth or god. ~ Frederick Lenz

Theology is never any help; it is searching in a dark cellar at midnight for a black cat that isn't there. Theologians can persuade themselves of anything. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

One should not pray if that prayer is vanity. ~ Idries Shah

it seemed entirely possible to him that religion and literature and art and music were all merely side effects of a brain structure that comes into the world ready to make language out of noise, sense out of chaos. Our capacity for imposing meaning, he thought, is programmed to unfold the way a butterfly's wings unfold when it escapes the chrysalis, ready to fly. We are biologically driven to create meaning. And if that's so, he asked himself, is the miracle diminished? It ~ Mary Doria Russell

If we talk about the living oracles and want to pay respect to them, how shall we do this? Shall we do it by never reading their words-by paying not attention to that which they say? That is a very poor way of doing.
We ought to listen to their words. When we cannot hear their words, we should read them; for they are the words of the authorized servants of God. I feel that there is a great neglect among us in this respect.
CR, 1897, 38, George Q. Cannon (CR is Reports of the General Conferences of the Church) ~ John Andreas Widtsoe

Religion is a very scary thing, because a pastor is in a position of power. And if you use that power badly, you ruin people's lives, and you ruin your own life. ~ Eugene H. Peterson

The great preacher and founder of the Methodist movement, John Wesley (1703-1791), was once approached by a man who came to him in the grip of unbelief. "All is dark; my thoughts are lost," the man said to Wesley, "but I hear that you preach to a great number of people every night and morning. Pray, what would you do with them? Whither would you lead them? What religion do you preach? What is it good for?" Wesley gave this answer to those questions:

You ask, what would I do with them? I would make them virtuous and happy, easy in themselves, and useful to others. Whither would I lead them? To heaven, to God the judge, the lover of all, and to Jesus the mediator of the New Covenant. What religion do I preach? The religion of love. The law of kindness brought to light by the gospel. What is this good for? To make all who receive it enjoy God and themselves, to make them like God, lovers of all, contented in their lives, and crying out at their death, in calm assurance, "O grave where is thy victory! Thanks be to God, who giveth me victory, through my Lord Jesus Christ. ~ John Wesley

Sufism, they say, is that which enables one to understand religion, irrespective of its current outward form. ~ Idries Shah

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. ~ Pat Robertson

Time and time again, technology, along with advances in neuroscience and even genetics, seems to be validating things our ancestors knew all along by revealing exactly what happens physiologically during meditation and how regular practice can improve our bodies and minds. ~ Benjamin W Decker

Science, we are repeatedly told, is the most reliable form of knowledge about the world because it is based on testable hypotheses. Religion, by contrast, is based on faith. The term 'doubting Thomas' well illustrates the difference. ~ Paul Davies

Really to believe in human nature while striving to know the thousand forces that warp it from its ideal development-to call for and expect much from men and women, and not to be disappointed
and embittered if they fall short- to try to do good with people rather than to them- this is my religion on its human side. And if God exists, I think that he must be in the warm sun, in the kindly actions of the people we know and read of, in the beautiful things of art and nature, and in the closeness of friendships. ~ Randolph Bourne

The danger of pride
I see increasingly how difficult it is to exercise authority in a community. We are so inclined to want authority for the honour, prestige and admiration that comes with it. Inside each of us is a little tyrant who wants power and the associated prestige, who wants to dominate, to be superior and to control. We are frightened of criticism. We feel we are the only ones to see the truth - and that, sometimes, in the name of God ... So the community becomes 'our' project.
... And Christians can sometimes hide these tendencies behind a mask of virtue, doing what they do for 'good' reasons. There is nothing more terrible than a tyrant using religion as his or her cover. I know my own tendencies toward this and I have to struggle against them constantly. ~ Jean Vanier

Like most people born into a religious tradition, my faith was as familiar to me as my skin, and just as disregardable. ~ Reza Aslan

I have always respected everyone's religion. As I say, there is only one God and a lot of confused people. ~ Hazel Scott

We are beginning to see practical support. And this is a very significant sign of the movement towards a new era, a new age ... We see both in our country and elsewhere ... ghosts of the old thinking ... When we rid ourselves of their presence, we will be better able to move toward a new world order ... relying on the relevent mechanisms of the United Nations. ~ Mikhail Gorbachev

But if in Silicon Valley meritocracy is a religion, its God is a white male Harvard dropout. ~ Caroline Criado Perez

I'm not really into religion, OK. I saw a lot of things I did not like when I got into organized religion. I think a lot of people abuse it, I think a lot of people use it, I think a lot of people make it what they want. And me, my faith and my relationship with God is very personal. And it's not anybody's damn business how we talk. ~ Jake Roberts

He was only the second or third in his sprawling family (their religion, Skip once said, was Irish Alcoholic) to ever go to college. Clan ~ Stephen King

An important fraction of United States industry adheres to the idea that research of a fundamental character is worthwhile from a practical point of view. ~ William Shockley

Bah, he still saw the same stupidity. The image of the hanged man in the farming community of Yondern flashed through his mind. Now there was a war brewing between the Steelwielders and some foreign religion. More mindless loss over beliefs and mythology. But.. he could not deny the noble features in his companions. Although Perfidian was too blithe and Elaina too didactic, they had risked their life to do what was right. He did owe them his life. He could not deny the nobility he saw in many different people, bits and pieces of nobility that shined through under pressure. The guards who risked their lives to protect the villagers, Markham who flew at the dangerous dwarf, swords flashing; even an Eruthian merchant who stopped in his journey to share tales with complete strangers'. ~ T.P. Grish

In the latter case it is often government that organizes the conquest, and religion that justifies it. ~ Jared Diamond

Scientists have an expression for hypotheses that are utterly useless even for learning from mistakes. They refer to them as being "not even wrong." Most so-called spiritual discourse is of this type. ~ Christopher Hitchens

If you set out alone and sovereign, unconnected to a family, a religion, a nationality, a tradition, a class, then pretty soon you are too lonely, too self-invented and unique, and too much aware that there is no one else like you in the world. If you submerge yourself completely in something - your town or your profession or your hobby - then pretty soon you have to struggle up to the surface because you need to be sure that even though you are a part of something big, some community, you still exist as a single unit with a single mind. It is the fundamental contradictoriness of the United States of America - the illogical but optimistic notion that you can create a union of individuals in which every man is king. ~ Susan Orlean

I am convinced that everyone can develop a good heart and a sense of universal responsibility with or without religion. ~ Dalai Lama

... religious traditions build up meaning only over time and in a communal context. They can't be purchased like a burger or a pair of shoes. ~ Kathleen Norris

A strong argument for the religion of Christ is this - that offenses against Charity are about the only ones which men on their death-beds can be made - not to understand - but to feel - as crime. ~ Edgar Allan Poe