Spirituality Without Religion Quotes

Is humanity ready to look upon the roots of religion as it has looked into its political and scientific roots? Are people ready to strip away the fallacies like they have with humours for bacteria, virus, et cetera?
Can spirituality be given a chance to lie bare and naked, proudly strutting its stuff publicly? These are the questions that will render the verdict of whether one hears the call of the child (truth) and proclaim its message to the religious royalty, or whether humanity will cling to its "infallible" yet invisible messengers as if they currently cling to us as clothing. ~ Leviak B. Kelly

Overall, being spiritual and being religious are both part of being in relationship with God. Neither can be fully realized without the other. Religion without spirituality can become a dry list of dogmatic statements divorced from the life of the spirit. This is what Jesus warned against. Spirituality without religion can become a self-centered complacency divorced from the wisdom of a community. That's what I'm warning against. For St. Ignatius ~ James Martin

He was just a small church parson when the
war broke out, and he
Looked and dressed and acted like all parsons
that we see.
He wore the cleric's broadcloth and he hooked
his vest behind.
But he had a man's religion and he had a stong
man's mind.
And he heard the call to duty, and he quit his
church and went.
And he bravely tramped right with 'em every-
where the boys were sent.

He put aside his broadcloth and he put the
khaki on;
Said he'd come to be a soldier and was going
to live like one.
Then he'd refereed the prize fights that the boys
pulled off at night,
And if no one else was handy he'd put on the
gloves and fight.
He wasn't there a fortnight ere he saw the sol-
diers' needs,
And he said: "I'm done with preaching; this
is now the time for deeds."

He learned the sound of shrapnel, he could tell
the size of shell
From the shriek it make above him, and he knew
just where it fell.
In the front line trench he laboured, and he knew
the feel of mud,
And he didn't run from danger and he wasn't
scared of blood.
He wrote letters for the wounded, and he cheered
them with his jokes,
And he never made a visit without passing round
the smokes.

Then one day a bullet got him, as he knelt be-
side a lad
Who was "going west" right speedy, and they
both seemed mighty glad,
Edgar A. Guest

People will tell us that without the consolations of religion they would be intolerably unhappy. So far as this is true, it is a coward's argument. Nobody but a coward would consciously choose to live in a fool's paradise. When a man suspects his wife of infidelity, he is not thought the better of for shutting his eyes to the evidence. And I cannot see why ignoring evidence should be contemptible in one case and admirable in the other. ~ Bertrand Russell

And so one may be without connection with any church, and even without connection with any established religion, and yet be in spirit, hence in reality, a much truer Christian than hosts of those who profess to be His most ardent followers, as indeed Jesus Himself so many times says. "By their fruits ye shall know them," said He. "Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven." ~ Ralph Waldo Trine

I'm a pretty solid Christian. But even as an altar boy, I was always asking the bigger questions
you know: if God is, in fact, good, what is all this death I see? And if God is gentle, what is all this suffering I see? I've found some of the answers in Eastern religion. It explained my Christianity to me. Good and evil are the same thing. You can't have one without the other. It's the balance, it's the temperance of things. ~ Tim Allen

Nothing is more vital to him than prejudices. Let us not take this word in bad part. It does not necessarily signify false ideas, but only, in the strict sense of the word, any opinions adopted without examination. Now, these kinds of opinion are essential to man; they are the real basis of his happiness and the palladium of empires. Without them, there can be neither religion, morality, nor government. There should be a state religion just as there is a state political system; or rather, religion and political dogmas, mingled and merged together, should together form a general or national mind sufficiently strong to repress the aberrations of the individual reason which is, of its nature, the mortal enemy of any association whatever because it gives birth only to divergent opinions. ~ Joseph De Maistre

Without doubt the greatest injury of all was done by basing morals on myth. For, sooner or later, myth is recognized for what it is, and disappears. Then morality loses the foundation on which it has been built. ~ Herbert Samuel, 1st Viscount Samuel

To imagine the world without gods and religion is reasonable enough; to imagine mankind without them is an entirely different matter. ~ Anthony Marais

Self proclamation of authoritative titles is a common phenomenon among religious and/or occult sect leaders. A cursory survey of this primarily 20th century phenomenon will instantly reveal a multitude of self-declared Masters, High Priests, gurus, Ipsissimi, Bhaghwani, etc.. I am pleased that I cannot count myself among such types. Legitimate religious teachers and scholars know that a genuine spiritual leader is one whose calling to lead is first noticed by those outside of him or herself based on certain qualities, abilities, and actions and then must subsequently be accepted by the individual in question as his or her destiny. This contrasts with those whose will to lead is born simply out of the mundane wish to be a leader. In such cases the goal being to reap the rewards a title brings without the hard work and the innate, manifest qualities which validate the position; in short what might be considered a 'false prophet'."

--"From the Eye of the Storm" (Zeena's column for the SLM) Volume II – Winter Issue (2003): "One Year Later... ~ Zeena Schreck

The need of one human being for the approval of his fellow humans, the need for a certain cult of fellowship - a psychological, almost physiological need for approval of one's thought and action. A force that kept men from going off at unsocial tangents, a force that made for social security and human solidarity, for the working together of the human family.
Men died for that approval, sacrificed for that approval, lived lives they loathed for that approval. For without it man was on his own, an outcast, an animal that had been driven from the pack.
It had led to terrible things, of course - to mob psychology, to racial persecution, to mass atrocities in the name of patriotism or religion. But likewise it had been the sizing that held the race together, the thing that from the very start had made human society possible.
And Joe didn't have it. Joe didn't give a damn. He didn't care what anyone thought of him. He didn't care whether anyone approved or not. ~ Clifford D. Simak

…But what it comes down to for me is that it's not an ideal world. There are people out there who torture, burn, maim, bomb and enslave others. Mostly because of religion and territory, and they're not going to be dissuaded from their path. Kids should be able to chase butterflies and feed ducks and go to school without fearing a bomb or a bullet. Or worse. And I guess that's why I do what I do… ~ Bronwyn Parry

So I looked with fascination at those people in their mobes, and tried to fathom what it would be like. Thousands of years ago, the work that people did had been broken down into jobs that were the same every day, in organizations where people were interchangeable parts. All of the story had been bled out of their lives. That was how it had to be; it was how you got a productive economy. But it would be easy to see a will at work behind this: not exactly an evil will, but a selfish will. The people who'd made the system thus were jealous, not of money and not of power but of story. If their employees came home at day's end with interesting stories to tell, it meant that something had gone wrong: a blackout, a strike, a spree killing. The Powers That Be would not suffer others to be in stories of their own unless they were fake stories that had been made up to motivate them. People who couldn't live without story had been driven into the concents or into jobs like Yul's. All others had to look somewhere outside of work for a feeling that they were part of a story, which I guessed was why Saeculars were so concerned with sports, and with religion. How else could you see yourself as part of an adventure? Something with a beginning, middle, and end in which you played a significant part? We avout had it ready-made because we were a part of this project of learning new things. Even if it didn't always move fast enough for people like Jesry, it did move. You could tell where you we ~ Neal Stephenson

Ah, mon cher, for anyone who is alone, without God and without a master, the weight of days is dreadful. ~ Albert Camus

Religious feeling; but in Miss Brooke's case, religion alone would have determined it; and Celia mildly acquiesced in all her sister's sentiments, only infusing them with that common-sense which is able to accept momentous doctrines without any eccentric agitation. Dorothea knew many passages of Pascal's Pensees and of Jeremy Taylor by heart; and to her the destinies of mankind, seen by the light of Christianity, made the solicitudes of feminine fashion appear an occupation for Bedlam. She could not reconcile the anxieties of a spiritual life involving eternal consequences, with a keen interest in gimp and artificial protrusions ~ George Eliot

Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too? ~ Douglas Adams

People who have a religion should be glad, for not everyone has the gift of believing in heavenly things. You don't necessarily even have to be afraid of punishment after death; purgatory, hell, and heaven are things that a lot of people can't accept, but still a religion, it doesn't matter which, keeps a person on the right path. It isn't the fear of God but the upholding of one's own honor and conscience. How noble and good everyone could be if, every evening before falling asleep, they were to recall to their minds the events of the while day and consider exactly what has been good and bad. Then, without realizing it you try to improve yourself at the start of each new day; of course, you achieve quite a lot in the course of time. Anyone can do this, it costs nothing and is certainly very helpful. Whoever doesn't know it must learn and find by experience that: A quiet conscience mades one strong! ~ Anne Frank

GURU is a word that epitomizes knowledge. There is
a tattva (element) of Guru in each of us. Knowingly or
unknowingly, whenever we do something to benefit
another, without expecting anything in return, we bring
alive the Guru element within ourselves. ~ Hingori

Some honest people think it is better to know the ways of the devil without being evil. ~ Janvier Chouteu-Chando

The purpose of science is to develop, without prejudice or preconception of any kind, a knowledge of the facts, the laws, and the processes of nature. The even more important task of religion, on the other hand, is to develop the consciences, the ideals, and the aspirations of mankind. ~ Robert Andrews Millikan

Generally religion and puritanism prevail in periods when the laws are feeble and morals must bear the burden of maintaining social order; skepticism and paganism (other factors being equal) progress as the rising power of law and government permits the decline of the church, the family, and morality without basically endangering the stability of the state. ~ Will Durant

It goes without saying that it is the traditionally minded Hindu we have in view, and not one whose hereditary dispositions have deviated in an anti-traditional direction, to the point of proving that "corruptio optimi pessima." Hinduism, strictly speaking, has no "dogmas" in the sense that every concept may be denied, on condition that the argument used is intrinsically true; which amounts to saying that concepts can be denied from the standpoint of a higher level of truth, metaphysics standing above cosmology and realization above theory as such. However, on their own level, the scriptural symbols of Hinduism are just as immovable as the Semitic dogmas, and this excludes any fallacious comparison of Hindu doctrine with the opinions of philosophers. No orthodox Hindu can maintain that the Veda has been mistaken on any point whatsoever. ~ Frithjof Schuon

The deepest sin against the human mind is to believe things without evidence. ~ Aldous Huxley

Religion without art is a dead system of dogmas which have no effect on life. ~ Anagarika Govinda

And so [my brother] Gilbert and I, brought up without a formal religion, remained throughout our lifetimes just what Father was, freethinkers. And, likewise, doubters and dissenters and perhaps Utopians. Father's rule had been 'Question everything, take nothing for granted,' and I never outlived it, and I would suggest it be made the motto of a world journalists' association. ~ George Seldes

I used to listen to the monks repeating the Lord's Prayer; I wondered how they could continue to pray without misgiving to their heavenly father to give them their daily bread. Do children beseech their earthly father to give them sustenance? They expect him to do it, they neither feel gratitude to him for doing so nor need to, and we have only blame for a man who brings children into the world that he can't or won't provide for. It seemed to me that if an omnipotent creator was not prepared to provide for his creatures with the necessities, material and spiritual, of existence he'd have done better not to create them. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

So tell me, since it makes no factual difference to you and you can't prove the question either way, which story do you prefer? Which is the better story, the story with animals or the story without animals?' Mr. Okamoto: 'That's an interesting question?' Mr. Chiba: 'The story with animals.' Mr. Okamoto: 'Yes. The story with animals is the better story.' Pi Patel: 'Thank you. And so it goes with God. ~ Yann Martel

We can scarcely indeed look into any part of the sacred volume without meeting abundant proofs, that it is the religion of the Affections which God particularly requires. Love, Zeal, Gratitude, Joy, Hope, Trust, are each of them specified; and are not allowed to us as weaknesses, but enjoined on us as our bounden duty, and commended to us as our acceptable worship. ~ William Wilberforce

Nobody can deny but religion is a comfort to the distressed, a cordial to the sick, and sometimes a restraint on the wicked; therefore whoever would argue or laugh it out of the world without giving some equivalent for it ought to be treated as a common enemy. ~ Mary Wortley Montagu

My formula for success was very simple: Do whatever is put in front of you with all your heart and soul without regard for personal results. Do the work as though it were given to you by the universe itself - because it was. ~ Michael A. Singer

There is no great religion without a great schism. All of them have it. And that's because you're dealing with something called faith. And faith is not something you can prove; faith is personal opinion. Uh, when you're dealing with something with certainty, like, y'know, science or logic, you don't have the
there's no wiggle room; that's why history is not filled with warring math cults, y'know, because you can settle the issue; you can prove something to be right or wrong, and that's the end of the argument: next case. Whereas, when you're dealing with faith, you can forever argue your point, or another point, because you're dealing with intangibles. Personally, I think, faith is what you ask of somebody when you don't have the goods to prove your point. ~ Tom Quinn

There is
no such thing as a problem
without a gift for you
in its hands. ~ Richard Bach

Terrible things are done in the name of religion, without a doubt, but it was not religion but science that brought the world itself to the brink of destruction. ~ Chris Beckett

It becomes clear that, given our diversity, no single religion satisfies all humanity. ... And since the majority does not practice religion, I am concerned to try to find a way to serve all humanity without appealing to religious faith. ~ Dalai Lama

The moral virtues, without religion are but cold, lifeless, and insipid; it is only religion which opens the mind to great conceptions, fills it with the most sublime ideas, and warms the soul with more than sensual pleasures. ~ Joseph Addison

I love money because money is power, the power to invite my friends for lunch and pay the bill without expecting anything in return, the power to give twenty dollars to beggar just because I can, the power to offer an expensive remote control helicopter to children and create a huge smile in them, the power to wait for the ones you love to love you back just because you don't need to waste your time like they do. ~ Robin Sacredfire

I think it's perfectly possible to explain how the universe came about without bringing God into it, but I don't know everything, and there may well be a God somewhere, hiding away. Actually, if he is keeping out of sight, it's because he's ashamed of his followers and all the cruelty and ignorance they're responsible for promoting in his name. If I were him, I'd want nothing to do with them. ~ Philip Pullman

An important distinction needs to be made in politics between allowing your values to guide you and keeping religion and government separate. Liberals are rightly concerned about government-established and government-supported religion, especially in our religiously polyglot society. But their unwillingness to engage on policy at the level of transcendent and timeless values, for fear of something too moralistic or religious, yields too much ground to the radical political right, which has come to claim Christianity in particular to advance a deeply non-Christian agenda. Theirs is a faith based on intolerance, a faith without compassion. Hating homosexuals and despising immigrants instead of hating poverty and despising homelessness seems to miss the point of a life of faithfulness. ~ Deval Patrick

In the second place, the care of souls cannot belong to the civil magistrate, because his power consists only in outward force; but true and saving religion consists in the inward persuasion of the mind, without which nothing can be acceptable to God. And such is the nature of the understanding, that it cannot be compelled to the belief of anything by outward force. Confiscation of estate, imprisonment, torments, nothing of that nature can have any such efficacy as to make men change the inward judgement that they have framed of things. ~ John Locke

Many religious people find it hard to imagine how, without religion, one can be good, or would even want to be good. ~ Richard Dawkins

You cannot please God without offending the unholy devil . ~ Osunsakin Adewale

A world without God to give people faith that all their suffering is not meaningless is a nightmare. A world without religion means a world without any systematic way of ennobling people. A world without countries is a world without the United States of America, and it is a world governed by the amoral United Nations, where mass murderers sit on "human rights" councils. A world without heaven or hell is a world without any ultimate justice, where torturers and their victims have identical fates. A world without possessions is a world in which some enormous state possesses everything, and the individual is reduced to the status of a well-fed serf. Liberals frequently criticize conservatives for fearing change. What we fear is transforming that which is already good. The moral record of humanity does not fill us with optimism about "fundamentally transforming" something as rare as America. Evil is normal. America is not. ~ Dennis Prager

Love is a cruel pain that devours everything. Sometimes it tears the veil from the soul, sometimes it draws it together. An atom of love is preferable to all that exists between the horizons, an atom of its pain better than the happy love of all lovers. Love is the marrow of beings; but there can be no real love without real suffering. Whoever is grounded firm in love renounces faith, religion, and unbelief. Love will open the door of spiritual poverty and poverty will show you the way of unbelief. When there remains neither unbelief nor religion, your body and your soul will disappear; you will then be worthy of the mysteries- if you could fathom them, this is the only way. ~ Farid Al-Din Attar