Religion Literature Quotes

For she was of that generation who, having found nothing in religion, had formed themselves through literature. ~ Doris Lessing

There are even more statues of Robert Burns than of any other figure in world literature. Indeed if we discount figures of religion, then only Christopher Columbus has more statues than he worldwide. ~ Len G. Murray

Post-modern intellectuals have pronounced their historical judgment on America's past, finding it to be morally indefensible. Every great human achievement of the past - whether in philosophy, religion, literature, or the humanities - came to be understood as a kind of exploitation of the powerless. Rather than allowing the past to be viewed in terms of its aspirations and accomplishments, it has been judged by its failures. The living part of the past is understood in terms slavery, racism, and identity politics. Political correctness arose as the practical and necessary means of enforcing this historical judgment. No public defense of past greatness could be allowed to live in the present. Public morality and public policy would come to be understood in terms of the formerly oppressed. ~ John Marini

If people lived forever - if they never got any older - if they could just go on living in this world, never dying, always healthy - do you think they'd bother to think hard about things, the way were doing now? I mean, we think about its everything, more or less - philosophy, psychology, logic. Religion. Literature. I kinda think, if there were no such t
hing as death, the complicated thoughts and ideas like that would never come into the world. ~ Haruki Murakami

'Religion,' I should note, has a disputed etymology in Latin: some say it's from 'relegere,' meaning 'to reread', while others say it's from religare, meaning 'to connect' or 'link.' Literature is life's fastener. ~ Joshua Cohen

Religion is not a dogma, nor an emotion, but a service. ~ Roswell Dwight Hitchcock

There's a natural point in the development of any religion where the prophet becomes first a nuisance and then a positive liability. Just imagine Jesus walking into an evangelical church while the collection plate was being passed around ~ Adrian Barnes

To leave out beautiful sunsets is the secret of good taste. ~ Dejan Stojanovic

As for our gods, we have a few too many to be true. ~ Pierre Corneille

ORTHODOX PARADOX
Religion, unlike ethnicity, is inculcated
Kamil Ali ~ Kamil Ali

[T]he Dollar is always too light, a genuine Holy Ghost, more precious than blood. ~ Louis Ferdinand Celine

One should, perform karma with nonchalance
without expecting the benefits because
sooner of later one shall definitely gets the fruits. ~ Rig Veda

Maternal absence, in one form or another, is always found in the background of the incest romance. Womens literature on incest generally treats the theme of maternal absence tragically. Mens literature trivializes it or treats it comically. And clinical literature tends to treat it judgmentally. ~ Judith Lewis Herman

Philosophy and Religion-what are they when the wind blows and the water gets up in lumps? ~ William Golding

What has been said of [God] is either unintelligible or perfectly contradictory; and for this reason must appear impossible to every man of common sense. ~ Baron D'Holbach

Our children... have a passionate need for the dimension of transcendence, mysticism, way-outness. We're not offering it to them legitimately. The tendency of the churches to be relevant and more-secular-than-thou does not answer our need for the transcendent. As George Tyrrell wrote about a hundred years ago, "If a [man's] craving for the mysterious, the wonderful, the supernatural, be not fed on true religion, it will feed itself on the garbage of any superstition that is offered to it. ~ Madeleine L'Engle

But I want more. I want reasons to have faith in my faith, to have a reasonable confidence that there is actually truth in what my religion teaches me about God and my relation to God. And that faith has to be based on something within myself that I already trust: it has to be consonant with my experience of the universe and my abilities to reason about that universe. ~ Guy Consolmagno

In the Jewish religion it says - in the time of deepest darkest night act as if the morning has already come ~ Marianne Williamson

Jesus did not create a new religion, but set us free from all the rules and regulations of religion ~ Jeremy Myers

Samuel Marshak was one of the founders of modern Russian children's literature. Soviet children used to know his poems by heart, but only since glasnost have American editors shown any interest in issuing his poems here. ~ Michael Patrick Hearn

We are a race of peo­ple try­ing to find an­swers, and to me, re­li­gion is kind of like last year's text­books: out of date with too many notes in the mar­gins from the last fuck­ing guy. ~ Corey Taylor

This is the kind of detail that is forbidden in literature; in a book, no one would dare combine a full moon with Frank Sinatra. The problem with fiction is that it must seem credible, while reality seldom is. ~ Isabel Allende

If circumstances should make it impossible (temporarily, I hope) for me to be a Russian writer, perhaps I shall be able, like the Pole Joseph Conrad, to become for a time an English writer ... ("Letter To Stalin") ~ Yevgeny Zamyatin

Many people are trying to remove religion from public life. Under the banner of pluralism, cultural and political leaders are seeking to push all talk about God out of the public arena. ~ Charles Colson

The course of your reading should be parallel to the aim of your way of life…
Most books that contain instructions in doctrine are not useful for purification. The reading of many diverse books brings distraction of mind upon you. Know, then that not every book that teaches about religion is useful for the purification of the consciousness and the concentration of the thoughts. ~ St. Isaac Of Ninivah

Every religion has its dignity ... in freedom of expression there are limits. ~ Pope Francis

One of the greatest difficulties the left faces in reaching out to masses of people in America is its profound disrespect of spirituality and religious life…people on the left need to acknowledge – we need to grapple with – the question of religion. ~ Bell Hooks

Saying of the Prophet
Practice
Who are the learned? Those who put into practice what they know. ~ Idries Shah

You can't fit the same religion to every man any mo' than you can the same pair of breeches. The big man takes the big breeches an' the little man takes the small ones, an' it's jest the same with religion. It may be cut after one pattern, but it's might apt to get its shape from the wearer inside. Why, thar ain't any text so peaceable that it ain't drawn blood from somebody. ~ Ellen Glasgow

The Greeks' Christian successors rejected the idea that the universe is governed by indifferent natural law. They also rejected the idea that humans do not hold a privileged place within that universe. And though the medieval period had no single coherent philosophical system, a common theme was that the universe is God's dollhouse, and religion a far worthier study than the phenomena of nature. Indeed, in 1277 Bishop Tempier of Paris, acting on the instructions of Pope John XXI, published a list of 219 errors or heresies that were to be condemned. Among the heresies was the idea that nature follows laws, because this conflicts with God's omnipotence. Interestingly, Pope John was killed by the effects of the law of gravity a few months later when the roof of his palace fell in on him. ~ Stephen Hawking

I don't think the 9/11 attacks taught us anything we didn't already know about religion. It has long been obvious - even to the deeply religious - that religious fanaticism is an extremely dangerous deranger of otherwise sane and goodhearted people. ~ Daniel Dennett

Let's face a historical truth: we have never had a "free market", we have always had government intervention in the economy, and indeed that intervention has been welcomed by the captains of finance and industry. They had no quarrel with "big government" when it served their needs. ~ Howard Zinn

For Shakespeare, in the matter of religion, the choice lay between Christianity and nothing. He chose nothing. ~ George Santayana

These are the days when the Christian is expected to praise every creed except his own. ~ G.K. Chesterton

I have never seen Tsargrad, or angels, or heard the voice of God. But I think you should be careful, Batyushka, that God does not speak in the voice of your own wishing. ~ Katherine Arden

The First Amendment is important not only to guarantee the rights of alternative religions and of nonreligious persons in society; it is also important in setting the only possible legal and social condition for the creative health of serious religion itself. ~ Langdon Brown Gilkey

Divided as we may be by religion, we are united by charity. ~ Rashi

The best prayer is repentance.
The best sermon is character.
The best mirror is reality.
The best shield is faith.
The best hammer is will.
The best ammunition is truth.
The best fortress is reason.
The best school is life.

The best attorney is justice.
The best counselor is experience.
The best warrior is courage.
The best teacher is patience.
The best student is humility.
The best prophet is tomorrow.
The best general is strategy.
The best priest is piety.

The best physician is nature.
The best herb is peace.
The best medicine is forgiveness.
The best wealth is happiness.
The best angel is mercy.
The best companion is prudence.
The best light is wisdom.
The best religion is love. ~ Matshona Dhliwayo

If religion is only human, and its form is man's form, it follows that everything in religion is true. ~ Emile Chartier

Boston. Fucking horrible.
I remember, when 9/11 went down, my reaction was, "Well, I've had it with humanity."
But I was wrong. I don't know what's going to be revealed to be behind all of this mayhem. One human insect or a poisonous mass of broken sociopaths.
But here's what I DO know. If it's one person or a HUNDRED people, that number is not even a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a percent of the population on this planet. You watch the videos of the carnage and there are people running TOWARDS the destruction to help out. (Thanks FAKE Gallery founder and owner Paul Kozlowski for pointing this out to me). This is a giant planet and we're lucky to live on it but there are prices and penalties incurred for the daily miracle of existence. One of them is, every once in awhile, the wiring of a tiny sliver of the species gets snarled and they're pointed towards darkness.
But the vast majority stands against that darkness and, like white blood cells attacking a virus, they dilute and weaken and eventually wash away the evil doers and, more importantly, the damage they wreak. This is beyond religion or creed or nation. We would not be here if humanity were inherently evil. We'd have eaten ourselves alive long ago.
So when you spot violence, or bigotry, or intolerance or fear or just garden-variety misogyny, hatred or ignorance, just look it in the eye and think, "The good outnumber you, and we always will. ~ Patton Oswalt

I was raised in a religious home. It was unreasonable enforced religion that turned me off it. It was a joyless, unpleasant, stupid, barbaric thing when I was a child and I've never gotten over that feeling. If you're talking about religion it's one thing; I don't hold Jewish religion with any more seriousness than I would any other. ~ Woody Allen

There is first the literature of KNOWLEDGE, and secondly, the literature of POWER. The function of the first is
to teach; the function of the second is
to move. ~ Thomas De Quincey

There is no secret in attaining God. In the path of Enlightenment, any theoretical mystery-mongering preacher that weakens the mind, should be rejected at once. Science has no secrets. The very purpose of it is to unravel the secrets of Nature and the Universe. That is why it is so beautiful. And so should be the path of Enlightenment. ~ Abhijit Naskar

Religion was invented when the first con man met the first fool. ~ Mark Twain