Quotes About Religion

If religion comes into the public square, it is as vulnerable as any other human institution to be pelted with produce. Ignorance does not become wisdom just because you gussy it up with the Gospels.

No one has a monopoly on wisdom, and even for people who aren't religious, you can learn things from religious people.

"Religious Socialism," "Christian Socialism," are expressions implying a contradiction in terms.

Rituals are the kindergarten of religion. They are absolutely necessary for the world as it is now; only we shall have to give people newer and fresh rituals. A party of thinkers must undertake to do this. Old rituals must be rejected and new ones substituted.

This animal called man has some religious influence, but he is guided by economy.

Raja-Yoga is the science of religion, the rationale of all worship, all prayers, forms, ceremonies, and miracles.

The Yogi says, religion is practical if you know first why misery exists. All the misery in the world is in the senses. Is

If one religion true, then all the others also must be true. Thus the Hindu faith is yours as much as mine.

that religion is perfected in us only when it has led us to "Him who is the one life in a universe of death, Him who is the constant basis of an ever-changing world, that One who is the only soul, of which all souls are but delusive manifestations

Religion can be realised. Are you ready? Do you want it? You will get the realisation if you do, and then you will be truly religious. Until you have attained realisation there is no difference between you and atheists. The atheists are sincere, but the man who says that he believes in religion and never attempts to realise it is not sincere.

On the philosophic side the disciples of the Great Master dashed themselves against the eternal rocks of the Vedas and could not crush them, and on the other side they took away from the nation that eternal God to which every one, man or woman, clings so fondly. And the result was that Buddhism had to die a natural death in India. At the present day there is not one who calls oneself a Buddhist in India, the land of its birth. But

Philosophy of course is the essence of every religion; mythology explains and illustrates it by means of the more or less legendary lives of great men, stories and fables of wonderful things, and so on; ritual gives to that philosophy a still more concrete form, so that every one may grasp it — ritual is in fact concretised philosophy.

if a temple, or a symbol, or an image helps you to realise the Divinity within, you are welcome to it. Have two hundred images if you like. If certain forms and formularies help you to realise the Divine, God speed you; have, by all means, whatever forms, and whatever temples, and whatever ceremonies you want to bring you nearer to God. But do not quarrel about them; the moment you quarrel, you are not going Godward, you are going backward, towards the brutes.

Do I wish that the Christian would become Hindu? God forbid. Do I wish that the Hindu or Buddhist would become Christian? God forbid. The

How many sepoys were brought by the Musalmans? How many Englishmen are there? Where, except in India, can be had millions of men who will cut the throats of their own fathers and brothers for six rupees? Sixty millions of Musalmans in seven hundred years of Mohammedan rule, and two millions of Christians in one hundred years of Christian rule - what makes it so?

In every country it is the priest who is conservative, for two reasons — because it is his bread and because he can only move with the people. All priests are not strong. If the people say, "Preach two thousand gods," the priests will do it. They are the servants of the congregation who pay them. God does not pay them. So blame yourselves before blaming the priests. You can only get the government and the religion and the priesthood you deserve, and no better.

Vivekananda once remarked: In trying to practice religion, eighty percent of people turn cheats and about fifteen percent go mad; only the remaining five percent attain the immediate knowledge of the infinite Truth.

In trying to practice religion, eighty percent of people turn cheats and about fifteen percent go mad; only the remaining five percent attain the immediate knowledge of the infinite Truth.

Râja-Yoga is the science of religion, the rationale of all worship, all prayers, forms, ceremonies, and miracles.

To devote your life to the good of all and to the happiness of all is religion. Whatever you do for your own sake is not religion.

Now the history of the world shows that these two dreams — that of a universal political Empire and that of a universal religious Empire — have been long before mankind, but that again and again the plans of the greatest conquerors had been frustrated by the splitting up of his territories before he could conquer only a little part of the earth; and similarly every religion has been split into sects before it was fairly out of its cradle. Yet

When a man is gloomy, that may be dyspepsia, but it is not religion. To the Yogi everything is bliss, every human face that he sees brings cheerfulness to him.

The Hindu religion does not consist in struggles and attempts to believe a certain doctrine or dogma, but in realising — not in believing, but in being and becoming.

The only religion that ought to be taught is the religion of fearlessness. ... it is true that fear is the sure cause of degradation and sin. It is fear that brings misery, fear that brings death, fear that breeds evil. And what causes fear? - Ignorance of our own nature.