Quotes About Religion

La piedad consiste en una armonía exacta entre principios y prácticas piadosas

Until the heart is pure, all our holy things (that is, our religious duties) are polluted. They are but splendid sins!

He who has no love in his heart to God, you may set him down for an apostate.

Another sign of our effectual calling is diligence in our ordinary calling. Some boast of their high calling, but they lie idly at anchor. Religion does not seal warrants to idleness. Christians must not be slothful. Idleness is the devil's bath; a slothful person becomes a prey to every temptation. Grace, while it cures the heart, does not make the hand lame. He who is called of God, as he works for heaven, so he works in his trade.

A godly person chooseth Christ and grace before the most illustrious things under the sun:

Question: But why do people content themselves with a show of godliness? Answer: This helps to keep up their fame. Men are ambitious of credit, and wish to gain repute in the world, therefore they will dress themselves in the garb and mode of religion, so that others may write them down for saints. But alas, what is one the better for having others commend him—and his conscience condemn him? What good will it do a man when he is in hell—that others think he has gone to heaven?

Piety does not exclude industry.

None ever complained of serving God: it was their comfort and their crown on their death-bed.

The most ancient pictures and statues in Italy and other parts of Europe, of what are supposed to be representations of the Virgin Mary and the infant Jesus, are black. The infant god, in the arms of his black mother, his eyes and drapery white, is himself perfectly black. [335:8]

Maya, the mother of Buddha, and Devaki the mother of Crishna, were worshiped as virgins, [326:6] and represented with the infant Saviours in their arms, just as the virgin of the Christians is represented at the present day.

The ancient Greeks and Romans worshiped the Virgin Mother and Child for centuries before the Christian era. One of these was Myrrha, [332:6] the mother of Bacchus, the Saviour, who was represented with the infant in her arms. She had the title of "Queen of Heaven." [332:7] At many a Christian shrine the infant Saviour Bacchus may be seen reposing in the arms of his deified mother. The names are changed—the ideas remain as before. [332:8]

Ammonius Saccus (a Greek philosopher, founder of the Neo-platonic school) taught that: "Christianity and Paganism, when rightly understood, differ in no essential points, but had a common origin, and are really one and the same thing." [411:3]

The author of "The Religion of Israel," speaking of Samson, says: "The story of Samson and his deeds originated in a Solar myth, which was afterwards transformed by the narrator into a saga about a mighty hero and deliverer of Israel. The very name 'Samson,' is derived from the Hebrew word, and means 'Sun.' The hero's flowing locks were originally the rays of the sun, and other traces of the old myth have been preserved." [73:5]

Scotch Kirk, speaking of the precept uttered by Confucius, five hundred years before the time assigned for the birth of Jesus of Nazareth ("Whatsoever ye would not that others should do unto you, do not ye unto them"), says: "That Confucius is the author of this precept is undisputed, and therefore it is indisputable that Christianity has incorporated an article of Chinese morality.

Justin Martyr, in his Apology for the Christian religion, addressed to the Emperor Hadrian, says: "As to our Jesus curing the lame, and the paralytic, and such as were crippled from birth, this is little more than what you say of your Æsculapius." [260:5]

Can we say as much for what is termed "the religion of Christ?" No! this religion has had the aid of the sword and firebrand, the rack and the thumb-screw. "Persecution," is to be seen written on the pages of ecclesiastical history, from the time of Constantine even to the present day. [444:1] This Christian emperor and saint was the first to check free-thought.

The Rev. Joseph B. Gross, in his "Heathen Religion," also tells us that: "The ancient Persians celebrated a festival in honor of Mithras on the first day succeeding the Winter Solstice, the object of which was to commemorate the Birth of Mithras.

Let us at least say of religion that it means that every part of the body is infused with mind, not that the mind is overwhelmed and drowned in body. For the principal attribute of the Gods, without or within us, is mind.

religions are merely the garments of faith—and very ill cut they often are

Not a single Buddha, bodhisattva, or shengren in Europe, but in Asia: all philosophers and saints? What is that probability?

The shengren is above philosophy and beyond religion. He is decisively not European. This will be read in a thousand years.

Is it any wonder that You, the child, feel that instinctive reverence for THE ALL, which feeling we call "religion" that respect, and reverence for THE FATHER MIND? Is it any wonder that, when you consider the works and wonders of Nature, you are overcome with a mighty feeling which has its roots away down in your inmost being? It is the MOTHER MIND that you are pressing close up to, like a babe to the breast.

I'm not sure if I should pray to the Muslim God or the Hindu one. If Abdul were alive he would say there is only one God and I must pray to the God called Justice. But I am going to court because Abdul is dead.

Aunque el budismo es una de las religiones más antiguas, nunca ha habido una guerra en su nombre o por su doctrina.