When one person suffers from a delusion it is called insanity; when many people suffer from a delusion it is called religion.Robert Pirsig
How thoughtful of God to arrange matters so that, wherever you happen to be born, the local religion always turns out to be the true one.Richard Dawkins
With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil, that takes religion.Steven Weinberg
It was the experience of mystery - even if mixed with fear - that engendered religion.Albert Einstein
We are all atheists about most of the gods humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.Richard Dawkins
With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.Steven Weinberg
Religion has actually convinced people that there's an invisible man living in the sky who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever 'til the end of time! But He loves you. He loves you, and He needs money! He always needs money! He's all-powerful, all-perfect, all-knowing, and all-wise, somehow just can't handle money!George Carlin
With a Catholic mother and a Muslim father, I've always had a great interest in religion, but I've never practiced one myself. After I received a diagnosis of an aggressive form of leukemia at the age of 22, I put my faith in medicine.Suleika Jaouad
To be Catholic puts a lot of fear in you. It's a great religion, but also one that can limit your experience. You fear experience because everything is a sin.Donatella Versace
Religion must mainly be a matter of principles only. It cannot be a matter of rules. The moment it degenerates into rules, it ceases to be a religion, as it kills responsibility which is an essence of the true religious act.B. R. Ambedkar
Religion is meant to teach us true spiritual human character. It is meant for self-transformation. It is meant to transform anxiety into peace, arrogance into humility, envy into compassion, to awaken the pure soul in man and his love for the Source, which is God.Radhanath Swami
Just as 'Islam' literally means 'peace,' none of the 99 names of Allah mean violence. Similarly, every religion in the world stands for peace, compassion, and brotherhood.Sushma Swaraj
A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other hand, they do less easily move against him, believing that he has the gods on his side.Aristotle
After coming into contact with a religious man I always feel I must wash my hands.Friedrich Nietzsche
Of all religions, the Christian should of course inspire the most tolerance, but until now Christians have been the most intolerant of all men.Voltaire
Superstition is to religion what astrology is to astronomy the mad daughter of a wise mother. These daughters have too long dominated the earth.Voltaire
Religion is everywhere. There are no human societies without it, whether they acknowledge it as a religion or not.Octavia E. Butler
This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness.Dalai Lama
Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.Lucius Annaeus Seneca
I call religion a natural authority, but it has usually been conceived as a supernatural authority.Herbert Read
Science can purify religion from error and superstition. Religion can purify science from idolatry and false absolutes.Pope John Paul II
When we blindly adopt a religion, a political system, a literary dogma, we become automatons. We cease to grow.Anais Nin
Any religion that professes to be concerned about the souls of men and is not concerned about the slums that damn them, the economic conditions that strangle them and the social conditions that cripple them is a spiritually moribund religion awaiting burial.Martin Luther King, Jr.
Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.Blaise Pascal
Death anxiety is the mother of all religions, which, in one way or another, attempt to temper the anguish of our finitude.Emil Cioran