A Quotes
Browse famous quotes beginning with A. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.
“A religion is a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say, things set apart and forbidden-beliefs and practices which unite into one single moral community called a Church, all those who adhere to them.”
Source: The Rules of Sociological Method: And Selected Texts on Sociology and its Method
“A religion is not judged by the contents of its book but by the power of its Spirit.”
Source: The Little Book of Revelation: The First Coming of Jesus at the End of Days
“A religion is not the church a man goes to but the cosmos he lives in; and if any sceptic forgets it, the maddest fanatic beating an Orange drum about the Battle of the Boyne is a better philosopher than he.”
Source: Irish Impressions
“A religion made up solely of heightened religious experiences would not be a religion at all. ...The major religious traditions address the mysteries (with or without entheogens), but they have other business to do: widen understanding, give meaning, provide solace, promote loving-kindness, and connect human being to human being.”
“A religion old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the universe as revealed by modern science, might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths. Sooner or later such a religion will emerge.”
Source: Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space
“A religion shapes the world of its believers by identifying questions that need answers and providing answers that people 'know' to be true. ”
“A religion so cheerless, a philosophy so sorrowful, could never have succeeded with the masses of mankind if presented only as a system of metaphysics. Buddhism owed its success to its catholic spirit and its beautiful morality.”
Source: The Martyrdom of Man
“A religion such as Judaism or Catholicism might survive even if it comes to reject a literal account of God creating man and animals. But it cannot survive the rejection of an immaterial soul.”
“A religion that cannot stand a little laughter must be a very rotten one.”
“A religion that comes of thought, and study, and deliberate conviction, sticks best. The revivalized convert who is scared in the direction of heaven because he sees hell yawn suddenly behind him, not only regains confidence when his scare is over, but is ashamed of himself for being scared, and often becomes more hopelessly and malignantly wicked than he was before.”
“A religion that costs nothing is worth nothing. A cheap Christianity, without a cross, will prove in the end a useless Christianity, without a crown.”
Source: Holiness: It's Nature, Hindrances, Difficulties, and Roots
“A religion that doesn't discriminate wouldn't exist, because it wouldn't stand for anything.”
“A religion that gives nothing, costs nothing, and suffers nothing, is worth nothing.”
“A religion that is small enough for our understanding would not be big enough for our needs.”
“A religion that never suffices to govern a man will never suffice to save him; that which does not sufficiently distinguish one from a wicked world will never distinguish him from a perishing world.”
“A religion that takes no account of practical affairs and does not help to solve them is no religion.”
Source: The Wit and Wisdom of Gandhi
“A religion that teaches you God is something outside the world--something separate from everything you see, smell, taste, touch, and hear--is nothing but a cheap hustle.”
Source: Blade of Tyshalle
“A religion true to its nature must also be concerned about man's social conditions....A ny religion that professes to be concerned with the souls of men and is not concerned with the slums that damn them, the economic conditions that strangle them, and the social conditions that cripple them is a dry-as-dust religion.”
“A religion which has lost its basic conviction about the interconnection of men with men in their common struggles for the human, will never command belief in the realm of the superhuman.”
“A religion which supplies only mercy and forgiveness must create demand through systems of oppression. The genius of Christianity is that it caters to opposite extremes--the oppressed who demands mercy and the oppressor who demands forgiveness.”
“A religion without a goddess is halfway to atheism.”
“A religion without mystery must be a religion without God.”
“A religion without mystics is a philosophy.”
“A religion without the Holy Ghost, though it had all the ordinances and all the doctrines of the New Testament, would certainly not be Christianity.”
“A religion, even if it calls itself a religion of love, must be hard and unloving to those who do not belong to it.”
Source: Group Psychology and The Analysis of The Ego: Illustrated & Psychology Glossary & Index Added Inside
“A religion, that is, a true religion, must consist of ideas and facts both; not of ideas alone without facts, for then it would be mere Philosophy; - nor of facts alone without ideas, of which those facts are symbols, or out of which they arise, or upon which they are grounded: for then it would be mere History.”
Source: The Complete Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge: With an Introductory Essay Upon His Philosophical and Theological Opinions
“A religious act cannot be performed with the aid of the bayonet or the bomb.”
Source: Gandhi: Selected Writings
“A religious approach to marriage is the idea that if we work hard enough at something, we can earn the acceptance, approval, and life we think we deserve because of our obedient performance.”
“A religious awakening which does not awaken the sleeper to love has roused him in vain.”
“A religious belief is not a statement about Reality, but a hint, a clue about something that is a mystery, beyond the grasp of human thought. In short, a religious belief is only a finger pointing to the moon. Some religious people never get beyond the study of the finger. Others are engaged in sucking it. Others yet use the finger to gouge their eyes out. These are the bigots whom religion has made blind. Rare indeed is the religionist who is sufficiently detached from the finger to see what it is indicating - these are those who, having gone beyond belief, are taken for blasphemers.”
“A religious college in Cairo is considering issues of nanotechnology: If replicators are used to prepare a copy of a strip of bacon, right down to the molecular level, but without it ever being part of a pig, how is it to be treated?”
Source: Accelerando
“A religious creed differs from a scientific theory in claiming to embody eternal and absolutely certain truth, whereas science is always tentative, expecting that modification in its present theories will sooner or later be found necessary, and aware that its method is one which is logically incapable of arriving at a complete and final demonstration.”
“A religious fanatic is somebody who knows Jesus Christ better than you do.”
“A RELIGIOUS GOD AND A RACIST PERSON ARE NOT VIRTUOUS”
“A religious hope does not only bear up the mind under her sufferings but makes her rejoice in them.”
Source: The Evidences of the Christian Religion: With Additional Discourses on the Following Subjects, Viz. Of God, and His Attributes, The Power and Wisdom of God in the Creation, The Providence of God, The Worship of God, Advantages of Revelation Above Natural Reason, Excellency of the Christian Institution, Dignity of the Scripture Language, Against Atheism and Infidelity, Against the Modern Free-thinkers, Immortality of the Soul, and a Future State, Death and Judgment
“A religious individual may most gloriously carry out his or her own rituals, as a part of his or her cultural identity, but the moment, that person starts to build a wall of separation between the self and the rest of humanity, coaxed by the textual commands of a scripture, the healthy religiousness turns into dangerous fundamentalism, which is a threat to both the self and the society.”
“A religious life is a struggle and not a hymn.”
“A religious man is a person who holds God and man in one thought at one time, at all times, who suffers harm done to others, whose greatest passion is compassion, whose greatest strength is love and defiance of despair.”
Source: Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity: Essays
“A religious man is a person... whose greatest passion is compassion.”
“A religious myth can bring transcendence into everyday life in an abiding manner. It can infuse ordinary aspects of life with enchantment and timeless significance, thereby saving the human animal from existential despair.”
Source: More Than Allegory: On Religious Myth, Truth And Belief
“A religious ought to dread more being afraid of poverty than experiencing it.”
“A religious person answers to God, not to the elected or non-elected official.”
“A religious person is a desireless person.”
“A religious person is devout in the sense that he has no doubt about the significance of those superpersonal objects and goals which neither require nor are capable of rational foundation”
Source: Out of My Later Years: The Scientist, Philosopher, and Man Portrayed Through His Own Words
“A religious person without a job is dead. (Ìgbàgbọ́ ti ko níí ìṣe, òkú ní. - Yorùbá proverb)”
“A religious phenomenon will only be recognized as such if it is grasped at its own level, that is to say, if it is studied as something religious. To try to grasp the essence of such phenomenon by means of physiology, psychology, sociology, economics, linguistics, art or any other study is false; it misses the one unique and irreducible element in it - the element of the sacred.”
“A religious symbol does not rest on any opinion. And error belongs only with opinion. One would like to say: This is what took place here; laugh, if you can.”
“A religious test for entering our country is not reflective of America's fundamental values. I reject it.”
“A religious theory of society necessarily regards with suspicion all doctrines which claim a large space for the unfettered play of economic self-interest. To the latter the end of activity is the satisfaction of desires, to the former the felicity of man consists in the discharge of obligations imposed by God. Viewing the social order as the imperfect reflection of a divine plan, it naturally attaches a high values to the arts by which nature is harnessed to the service of mankind. But, more concerned with ends than with means, it regards temporal goods as at best instrumental to a spiritual purpose, and its standpoint is that of Bacon, when he spoke of the progress of knowledge as being sought for ‘the glory of the Creator and the relief of man’s estate.”
“A religiously minded kid will often be good at lying awake all night because you need an imagination if you're going to believe.”
Source: My Father's House