Every religion is good that teaches man to be good; and I know of none that instructs him to be bad.
~ Thomas Paine - [Religion]

Men despise religion. They hate it and are afraid it may be true.
~ Blaise Pascal - [Religion]

Religion, oh, just another of those numerous failures resulting from an attempt to popularize art.
~ Ezra Pound - [Religion]

A maker of idols is never an idolater.
~ Chinese Proverb - [Religion]

It is certain that if you would have the whole secret of a people, you must enter into the intimacy of their religion.
~ Edgar Quinet - [Religion]

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.
~ Sir Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan - [Religion]

The idea of the sacred is quite simply one of the most conservative notions in any culture, because it seeks to turn other ideas -- uncertainty, progress, change -- into crimes.
~ Salman Rushdie - [Religion]

Religions, which condemn the pleasures of sense, drive men to seek the pleasures of power. Throughout history power has been the vice of the ascetic.
~ Bertrand Russell - [Religion]

Religions are the cradles of despotism.
~ Marquis De Sade - [Religion]

All the sweetness of religion is conveyed to the world by the hands of story-tellers and image-makers. Without their fictions the truths of religion would for the multitude be neither intelligible nor even apprehensible; and the prophets would prophesy and the teachers teach in vain.
~ George Bernard Shaw - [Religion]