BELIEF / RELIGION

Related States & Conditions | Syntonic | Dystonic

However many holy words you read, however many you speak, what good will they do you if you do not act upon them?
Buddha
c. 563-483 BCE, Indian Prince, Mystic, Founder of Buddhism
Dhammapada

As unnecessary as a well is
to a village on the banks of a river,
so unnecessary are all scriptures
to someone who has seen the truth.
Bhagavad Gita
c. 400 BCE, Hindu Sacred Text
2:45, Stephen Mitchell, tr., 2000

The nature of God is a circle whose center is everywhere, and its circumference nowhere.
Empedocles
c. 490-c. 430 BCE, Greek Philosopher
in A Dictionary of Thought , Tryon Edwards, ed., 1901

The true believer begins with himself.
Berber Saying

Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful.
Seneca
c. 4 BCE-65 CE, Roman Philosopher, Poet, Dramatist, Essayist, Rhetorician, Statesman

God requires no synagogue – except in the heart.
Hasidic Saying

The kingdom of God cometh not with observation; neither shall they say, Lo here! or, Lo there! for behold, the kingdom of God is within you.
Jesus of Nazareth
c. 5-c. 38 CE, Jewish Prophet, Mystic, Founder of Christianity
in The Bible , Luke 17:20-21, Christian Sacred Text

Light your lamp first at home and afterward at the mosque.
Muslim Saying

Preach the gospel all the time. If necessary use words.
Francis of Assisi
c. 1181-1226, Italian Monk, Founder of the Franciscan Order, Saint

All religions,
all this singing,
is one song.
The differences are just
illusion and vanity.
The sun's light looks a little different
on this wall than it does on that wall …
but it's still one light.
Rumi
1207-1273, Afghani-Turkish Sufi Mystic, Poet
Rumi: One-Handed Basket Weaving , Coleman Barks, tr., 1991

Beware of confining yourself to a particular belief and denying all else, for much good would elude you – indeed, the knowledge of reality would elude you. Be in yourself a matter for all forms of belief, for God is too vast and tremendous to be restricted to one belief rather than another.
Al 'Arabi
1165-1240, Andalusian Sufi Master
in Vilayat Inayat Khan, Awakening: A Sufi Experience , 1999

I follow the religion of Love: whatever way
Love's camels take, that is my religion.
Al 'Arabi
in The Essential Writings of Mahatma Gandhi , Raghavan Iyer, ed., 1993

Whatever your heart clings to and relies upon, that is really your God.
Martin Luther
1483-1546, German Priest, Theologian, Reformer, Founder of the Lutheran Church

What a man would like to be true, he preferentially believes.
Francis Bacon
1561-1626, English Philosopher, Essayist, Politician

I count religion but a childish toy,
And hold there is no sin but ignorance.
Christopher Marlowe
1564-1593, English Poet, Dramatist

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.
Galileo
1564-1642, Italian Mathematician, Astronomer, Physicist, Inventor

'Twas only fear first in the world made gods.
Ben Jonson
1572-1637, English Dramatist, Poet
Sejanus

We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.
Jonathan Swift
1667-1745, Irish Satirist, Poet, Essayist, Cleric
Thoughts on Various Subjects , 1711

I conceive some scattered notions about a superior power to be of singular use for the common people, as furnishing excellent materials to keep people quiet when they grow peevish, and providing topics of amusement in a tedious winter-night.
Swift
An Argument Against Abolishing Christianity , 1708

There is a very good saying that if triangles invented a god, they would make him three-sided.
Montesquieu
1689-1755, French Philosopher, Jurist, Satirist
Lettres persanes

If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.
Voltaire
1694-1778, French Philosopher, Dramatist, Poet, Historian, Writer, Critic
A l'auteur du livre des trois imposteurs

If God made us in His image, we have certainly returned the compliment.
Voltaire
Le sottisier

Generally speaking, the errors in religion are dangerous; those in philosophy only ridiculous.
David Hume
1711-1776, Scottish Philosopher, Political Economist

All religions are ancient monuments to superstitions, ignorance, ferocity; and modern religions are only ancient follies rejuvenated.
Paul Holbach
1723-1789, French Philosopher
Le bons sens

You can preach a better sermon with your life than with your lips.
Oliver Goldsmith
c. 1728-1774, Irish Dramatist, Poet, Writer

I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church.
Thomas Paine
1737-1809, English-American Political Theorist, Pamphleteer

Infidelity does not consist in believing or in disbelieving; it consists in professing to believe what one does not believe.
Paine

In every country and every age, the priest had been hostile to Liberty.
Thomas Jefferson
1743-1826, 3rd US President, Philosopher, Social Architect

It is in our lives and not our words that our religion must be read.
Jefferson

To have a positive religion is not necessary. To be in harmony with yourself and the universe is what counts, and this is possible without positive and specific formulation in words.
Goethe
1749-1832, German Poet, Novelist, Dramatist, Philosopher, Scientist

Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble purpose, every expanded prospect.
James Madison
1751-1836, 4th US President

Alas! The fearful unbelief is unbelief in yourself.
Thomas Carlyle
1795-1881, Scottish Historian, Biographer, Critic, Essayist

We do not believe in immortality because we can prove it, but we try to prove it because we cannot help believing it.
Harriet Martineau
1802-1876, English Writer

Belief consists in accepting the affirmations of the soul; unbelief, in denying them.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
1803-1882, American Poet, Essayist, Philosopher

God enters by a private door into every individual.
Emerson

There lives more faith in honest doubt,
Believe me, than in half the creeds.
Alfred Lord Tennyson
1809-1892, English Lyric Poet
"In Memoriam"

Prayer does not change God, but changes him who prays.
Soren Kierkegaard
1813-1855, Danish Philosopher, Theologian

Religious talk is a very feast to self-deceit.
Frederick Faber
1814-1963, English Priest, Hymnwriter
Spiritual Conferences

Religion is the sign of the oppressed creature, the feelings of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of unspiritual conditions. It is the opium of the people.
Karl Marx
1818-1883, German Socialist Philosopher, Theorist
Criticism of Hegel's Philosophy of Right

What is your religion? I mean – not what you know about religion but the belief that helps you most?
George Eliot
1819-1880, English Writer, Poet

Our hope of immortality does not come from any religions, but nearly all religions come from that hope.
Robert Ingersoll
1833-1899, American Lawyer, Militarist, Writer

As one can ascend to the top of a house by means of a ladder or a bamboo or a staircase or a rope, so diverse are the ways and means to approach God, and every religion in the world shows one of these ways.
Ramakrishna
1834-1886, Indian Guru

Few really believe. The most only believe that they believe or even make believe.
John Lancaster Spalding
1840-1916, American Catholic Prelate, Educator, Writer
Thoughts and Theories of Life and Education

It is a fact of human nature that men can live and die by the help of a sort of faith that goes without a single dogma or definition.
William James
1842-1910, American Psychologist, Philosopher
The Will to Believe

Be not afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help you create the fact.
James

So many gods, so many creeds, so many paths … while just the act of being kind is all the world needs.
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
1850-1919, American Poet, Writer

If you can't have faith in what is held up to you for faith, you must find things to believe in yourself, for a life without faith in something is too narrow a space to live.
George Woodberry
1855-1930, American Writer
Selected Letters of George Edward Woodberry

Religion is an illusion and it derives its strength from the fact that it falls in with our instinctual desires.
Sigmund Freud
1856-1939, Austrian Neurologist, Founder of Psychoanalysis
New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis , 1933

There is only one religion, though there are a hundred versions of it.
George Bernard Shaw
1856-1950, Irish Writer, Dramatist, Literary Critic, 1925 Nobel Laureate
Arms and the Man

The moment we want to believe something, we suddenly see all the arguments for it, and become blind to the arguments against it.
Shaw
The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism and Capitalism

You must bear in mind that religion has to do only with the soul and has no business to interfere in social matters; you must also bear in mind that this applies completely to the mischief which has already been done.
Vivekananda
1863-1902, Indian Guru, Writer
The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, 1984-1987 , 4:358

Religion has no business to formulate social laws and insist on the difference between beings, because its aim and end is to obliterate all such fictions and monstrosities.
Ibid.

Pray all the time, read all the scriptures in the world, and worship all the gods there are … unless you realize the Soul there is no freedom.
Ibid. , 4:245

There is no knowledge without experience, and man has to see God in his own soul. When man has come face to face with the one great fact in the universe, then alone will doubts vanish and crooked things become straight. This is "seeing God." Our business is to verify, not to swallow. Religion, like other sciences, requires you to gather facts, to see for yourself, and this is possible when you go beyond the knowledge which lies in the region of the five senses. Religious truths need verification by everyone.
Ibid. , 6:133

Religion is the only science where there is no surety, because it is not taught as a science of experience. This should not be. There is always, however, a small group of men who teach religion from experience. They are called mystics, and these mystics in every religion speak the same tongue and teach the same truth. This is the real science of religion. As mathematics in every part of the world does not differ, so the mystics do not differ. They are all similarly constituted and similarly situated. Their experience is the same and this becomes law.
Ibid. , 6:81

The idea of supernatural beings may rouse to a certain extent the power of action in man, but it also brings spiritual decay. It brings dependence; it brings fear; it brings superstition. It degenerates into a horrible belief in the natural weakness of man. There is no supernatural … but there are in nature gross manifestations and subtle manifestations. The subtle are the causes, the gross the effects. The gross can be easily perceived by the senses; not so the subtle.
Ibid. , 1:122

The idea of Christ is much older than Christianity.
George Santayana
1863-1952, Spanish/American Philosopher, Writer

What a joy it would be when people realize that religion consists not in outward ceremonial but an ever-growing inward response to the highest impulses that man is capable of.
Mahatma Gandhi
1869-1948, Indian Spiritual Leader
Letter to Samuel E. Stokes, Mahadevbhaini Diary , Vol. II

I can say without the slightest hesitation, and yet in all humility, that those who say that religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion means.
Gandhi
An Autobiography

God has no religion.
Gandhi

To give pleasure to a single heart by a single act is better than a thousand heads bowing in prayer.
Gandhi

There are no longer any gods whom we can invoke to help us. The great religions of the world suffer from increasing anaemia because the helpful numina have fled from the woods, rivers, mountains, and animals, and the God-men have disappeared underground into the unconscious.
Carl Jung
1875-1961, Swiss Psychologist, Theorist
On the Religious Function of the Psyche

Religion is doing; a man does not merely think his religion or feel it, he "lives" his religion as much as he is able, otherwise it is not religion but fantasy or philosophy.
Gurdjieff
1877-1949, Greek-Armenian Teacher, Writer

Man is a credulous animal and must believe something. In the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones.
Bertrand Russell
1872-1970, English Philosopher, Mathematician, Essayist, Social Reformer, 1951 Nobel Laureate
Unpopular Essays , 1950

Religion is based … primarily and mainly upon fear. It is partly the terror of the unknown and partly … the wish to feel that you have a kind of elder brother who will stand by you in all your troubles and disputes. Fear is the basis of the whole thing – fear of the mysterious, fear of defeat, fear of death. Fear is the parent of cruelty, and therefore it is no wonder if cruelty and religion have gone hand in hand.
Russell
Why I Am Not a Christian: And Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects , 1957

In every spiritual attitude, a political attitude is latent.
Thomas Mann
1875-1955, German Writer, Critic, 1929 Nobel Laureate

Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind.
Albert Einstein
1879-1955, German/American Mathematical Physicist, 1921 Nobel Laureate

I cannot conceive of a God who rewards and punishes his creatures, or has a will of the type of which we are conscious in ourselves.
Einstein
The World As I See It , Alan Harris, tr., 1956, 1984

My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind.
Einstein

There lies at the back of every creed something terrible and hard for which the worshipper may one day be required to suffer.
E. M. Forster
1879-1970, English Writer, Essayist, Literary Critic
Two Cheers for Democracy , 1951

We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart.
H. L. Mencken
1880-1956, American Writer, Critic, Philologist, Satirist
Minority Report

Fear of death and fear of life both become piety.
Ibid.

There is no prospect that man will ever be without religion, but there is every prospect that he will soon be beyond our present religious beliefs.
Wiliam Pickens
1881-1954, African-American Educator, Orator
Preachers Defend Hell , 1923

Priests and rituals are only crutches for the crippled life of the soul.
Franz Kafka
1883-1924, Czech Writer

Is not religion all deeds and all reflection,
And that which is neither deed nor reflection, but a wonder and a surprise ever springing in the soul, even while the hands hew the stone or tend the loom?
Who can separate his faith from his actions, or his belief from his occupations? …
Your daily life is your temple and your religion.
Whenever you enter into it take with you your all.
Kahlil Gibran
1883-1931, Lebanese Poet, Mystic, Painter
The Prophet , 1923

The truly religious man does not embrace a religion; and he who embraces one has no religion.
Gibran

Construction of shrine and temple buildings is not enough. Establish yourself as a living Buddha image. We all should be transformed into goddesses of compassion or victorious buddhas.
Morihei Ueshiba
1883-1969, Japanese Martial Artist, Founder of Aikido
The Art of Peace , John Stevens, tr., 1992

A man has no religion who has not slowly and painfully gathered one together, adding to it, shaping it; and one's religion is never complete and final, it seems, but must always be undergoing modification.
D. H. Lawrence
1885-1930, English Writer, Poet, Critic

It is a fine thing to establish one's own religion in one's heart, not to be dependent on tradition and second-hand ideals. Life will seem to you, later, not a lesser, but a greater thing.
Lawrence
Selected Letters of D. H. Lawrence

Organized religion has become fossilized, which inhibits the spiritual transformation necessary to keep pace with man's development.
Irene Claremont de Castillejo
1885-1967, British Jungian Analyst, Writer, Poet
Knowing Woman: A Feminine Psychology , 1973, 1990

Religion is behaviour and not mere belief.
Radhakrishnan
1888-1975, Indian Philosopher, Statesman
in Theosophical Movement , 1968 March

It is not God that is worshipped but the group or authority that claims to speak in His name. Sin becomes disobedience to authority not violation of integrity.
Radhakrishnan
in J. A. L. Brown, Techniques of Persuasion , 1965

I can well imagine a religion in which there are no doctrines, so that nothing is spoken. Clearly, then, the essence of religion can have nothing to do with what is sayable.
Ludwig Wittgenstein
1889-1951, Austrian/British Philosopher
in The Enlightened Mind: An Anthology of Sacred Prose , Stephen Mitchell, ed., 1991

Pray as if everything depended upon God and work as if everything depended upon man.
Francis Spellman
1889-1967, American Cardinal

It is utter terror and loneliness that drive a man to address the void as "Thou."
Edna St. Vincent Millay
1892-1950, American Poet, Dramatist, Feminist

There is no social evil, no form of injustice, whether of the feudal or the capitalist order which has not been sanctified in some way or another by religious sentiment and thereby rendered more impervious to change.
Reinhold Niebuhr
1892-1971, American Theologian, Cleric

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

Prayer may not change things for you, but it sure changes you for things.
Samuel Moor Shoemaker, Jr.
1893-1963, American Episcopal Cleric, Writer

From being an activity concerned mainly with symbols religion will be transformed into an activity concerned mainly with experience and intuition – an everyday mysticism.
Aldous Huxley
1894-1963, English Writer, Poet, Critic

God, to me, it seems,
is a verb
not a noun,
proper or improper.
Buckminster Fuller
1895-1983, American Architect, Engineer
No More Secondhand God , 1963

In what concerns divine things, belief is not appropriate. Only certainty will do. Anything less than certainty is unworthy of God.
Simone Weil
1909-1943, French Philosopher, Essayist, Mystic

Religion, insofar as it is a sense of consolation, is a hindrance to true faith; and in this sense atheism is a purification.
Weil
The Simone Weil Reader , George Panichas, ed., 1992

Some like to understand what they believe in. Others like to believe what they understand.
Stanislaw Lec
1909-1996, Polish Poet
in Faber Book of Aphorisms , 1964

The need for believers of many faiths who feel strongly compelled to free themselves from outdated belief systems such as dogma, superstition, customs, prescriptions, and hackneyed concepts is growing increasingly stronger. Here, doubt is not an enemy of faith, but a servant that can help liberate individuals from the constraints of narrow conditioning, replacing theoretical belief with direct mystical experience.
Vilayat Khan
1916-, Indian-British Sufi Master, Writer
Awakening: A Sufi Experience , 1999

Mythology is what grownups believe, folklore is what they tell children, and religion is both.
Cedric Whitman
1916-1979, American Classicist

It may be that our role on this planet is not to worship God, but to create him.
Arthur C. Clarke
1917-, English Writer

The habit of religion is oppressive, an easy way out of personal thought.
Peter Ustinov
1921-, British Actor
Everybody's , 1957

Every day people are straying away from the church and going back to God.
Lenny Bruce
1923-1966, American Comedian

If the concept of God has any validity or use, it can only be to make us larger, freer and more loving. If God cannot do this, then it is time we got rid of Him.
James Baldwin
1924-1987, African-American Writer, Dramatist, Poet, Civil Rights Activist
The Fire Next Time , 1962

The idea of a good society is something you do not need a religion and eternal punishment to buttress; you need a religion if you are terrified of death.
Gore Vidal
1925-, American Writer
The Listener , 1978

The Lord can be addressed by any name that tastes sweet to your tongue, or pictured in any form that appeals to your sense of wonder and awe.
Sai Baba
1926-, Indian Mystic

Religion is not necessarily a good thing. It depends; religion can lead to great good, but it can equally lead to unspeakable evil and suffering.
Desmond Tutu
1931-, South African Anglican Prelate, Civil Rights Activist, 1984 Nobel Laureate
"The Secular State and Religions," The Wisdom of Desmond Tutu , Michael Battle, ed., 1998

If we can put the names of our faiths aside for the moment and look at principles, we will find a common thread running through all the great religious expressions.
Louis Farrakhan
1934-, African-American Islamic Leader

The religious response that has occurred in the Western world – a revolution that has made us more sensitive to the religions of the Orient – is an understanding that whatever answers there are must come from ourselves. The great turmoil in the religions is caused by the spirit demanding interiority. Faith is not dying in the West. It is merely moving inside.
Anthony Padovane
1934-, American Catholic Theologian, Writer

Not only is there no God, but try getting a plumber on weekends.
Woody Allen
1935-, American Film Director, Writer, Actor, Humorist
Getting Even , 1972

The aim and purpose of each religion is to cure the pains and unhappiness of the human mind … it is not a question of which religion is superior as such. The question is, which will better cure a particular person.
Dalai Lama
1935-, Tibetan Leader, 14th Dalai Lama, Teacher, Writer

We can reject everything else: religion, ideology, all received wisdom. But we cannot escape the necessity of love and compassion. This, then, is my true religion, my simple faith … There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own heart, our own mind, is our temple. The doctrine is compassion.
Dalai Lama
Ethics for the New Millennium , 1999

The profession of a religious belief is a lie if it does not significantly determine one's economic, political, and social behavior.
M. Scott Peck
1936-, American Psychiatrist, Writer
The Different Drum

God is a concept
By which we measure our pain.
John Lennon
1940-1980, English Pop Singer, Songwriter

What would it mean to live in a nurturing society, one where even men nurtured self, one another and others? … From a theological point of view (it would mean) the recovery of the tradition of God as Mother.
Matthew Fox
1940-, American Episcopal Priest, Educator, Writer

Politics and church are the same thing. They keep people in ignorance.
Bob Marley
1946-1981, Jamaican Reggae Musician, Songwriter

To choose unbelief is to choose mind over dogma, to trust in our humanity instead of all these dangerous divinities.
Salman Rushdie
1947-, Indian/British Writer
"Imagine No Heaven," Letters to the Six Billionth World Citizen , 1999

Institutional religion has had its potentially sharp prophetic edge dulled by its overt or silent complicity in maintaining the status quo.
James Washington
1948-1997, African-American Cleric, Scholar

We are so much stronger than we imagine, and belief is one of the most valiant and long-lived human characteristics. To believe, when all along we humans know that nothing can cure the briefness of this life, that there is no remedy for our basic mortality, that is a form of bravery … Without belief, we would be left with nothing but an overwhelming doom, every single day.
Lance Armstrong
1971-, American Cyclist
It's Not About the Bike , 2000

The success of any venture will be helped by prayer, even in the wrong denomination.
- Charles P. Boyle
American Scientist

What you believe is what you get. If a person has been introduced in some external way to a particular form that he is supposed to look for, then the spontaneous experiences become limited by those previous beliefs. That is why we eschew all spiritual belief systems.
Jack Rosenberg

Belief is what we do when we are too afraid to actually know … All belief is fear in action … Knowing has a steadiness and certainty about it which is lacking in believing.
- Pat Stacy
Buddhist Teacher

In all religions and all philosophies, we can now show that what they were looking for under all sorts of possible names: God, the Absolute, Truth, is none other than human.
- Carlos Suares

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Wisdom for The Soul: Five Millennia of Prescriptions for Spiritual Healing, © 2004