Religious Quotations | Page 5

The highs were high, the awe, I'm not a religious person, but I'll tell you, to be in the azure blue of the Gulf Stream as if, as you're breathing, you're looking down miles and miles and miles, to feel the majesty of this blue planet we live on, it's awe-inspiring.

Socialism has no moral justification whatsoever; poor people are not morally superior to rich people, nor are they owed anything by rich people simply because of their lack of success. Charity is not a socialist concept - it is a religious one, an acknowledgment of God's sovereignty over property, a sovereignty the Left utterly rejects.

I grew up in South Jamaica, Queens, in New York. My parents were very religious churchgoing people. They were very strict. I was never really allowed to indulge in anything vain. Modesty always. I have three brothers and two sisters, so everything was on a budget.

Establishing an equilibrium between the Islam of truth and Islam as an identity is one of the most difficult tasks of religious intellectuals.

But alas, they are all sadly deficient, because they leave us under the domination of political and religious prejudices; and they are as inefficient as the sleepy dose of an ordinary sermon.

I think we recognize as Americans there are certain things that are just primary to the freedoms and liberties that we enjoy here and religious freedom is one of the most important things we as Americans cherish.

The closest place that I feel like I come to having religious moments is always musical.

Israel of the coastal plain, where eight out of ten Israeli Jews live far removed from the occupied territories, from the fiery Jerusalem, from the religious and nationalistic conflicts, is unknown to the outside world, almost unknown to itself.

I have an almost religious zeal... not for technology per se, but for the Internet which is for me, the nervous system of mother Earth, which I see as a living creature, linking up.

I can say, 'Well, I'm a male. I'm a male human. I'm a medical doctor. I'm an author...' If I go to a religious point of view, I will say, 'I am a soul. I am a spirit.' If I go into science, I will say, 'I am energy. I am light.' But the truth is I have no idea what I am.

Am I a criminal? The world knows I'm not a criminal. What are they trying to put me in jail for? You've lost common sense in this society because of religious fanaticism and dogma.

My childhood was limited to mostly gospel music. We didn't have, like, a lot of records in our house, you know. It was like my grandparents who raised me. They were pretty old-fashioned in their religious ways, so it was like church, church, church, school, school, school.

To increase aid to the Pakistan government when religious freedom is not upheld is tantamount to an anti-Christian foreign policy.

The characteristic human trait is not awareness but conformity, and the characteristic result is religious warfare.

The devil put before me that I could not endure the trials of the religious life, because of my delicate nurture. I defended myself against him by alleging the trials which Christ endured, and that it was not much for me to suffer something for His sake; besides, He would help me to bear it.

I'm not a religious person. The language of photography is symbolic.

To listen to some devout people, one would imagine that God never laughs.

The traditional spokespersons for the Evangelicals, such as Chuck Colson and James Dobson, have become alarmed about this drift away from the 'Family Values' issues that they believe should be the overwhelming concerns of Evangelicals. They have expressed their displeasure in letters of protest circulated through the religious media.

A cult is a religion with no political power.

Malaysia is a country unlike any other: Full of promise and fragility. Its history, cultural and religious diversity make it a rich, compelling and surprising land.

Every war results from the struggle for markets and spheres of influence, and every war is sold to the public by professional liars and totally sincere religious maniacs, as a Holy Crusade to save God and Goodness from Satan and Evil.

In theater or movies you see either 'I'm religious' or 'I'm an atheist.' I've never seen too much discussion of 'I believe there's a higher power but I'm hesitant to reach out to him because I don't know if I'm worthy of his attention.

From the smallest necessity to the highest religious abstraction, from the wheel to the skyscraper, everything we are and everything we have comes from one attribute of man - the function of his reasoning mind.

We have enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.

Christmas is joy, religious joy, an inner joy of light and peace.

To the extent that I come from a deeply religious tradition and have been contending with those beginnings all of my life - that constitutes the subject of much of my early fiction.

I believe that religious faith schools are highly dubious.

What the printing press is to Christianity in the 16th century, that's what the Internet is doing to Islam now. It has opened up the monopoly over the interpretation of Islam that used to solely belong to the religious class.

The hardest situation to pick up a girl in is ... in church and in Morocco on Ramadan. On Ramadan or one of those religious days? Try to pick up a girl is bananas.

The good news is that a vast majority of Indians from different religions see no contradiction between religiosity and liberalism, keep India stable. We religious liberals don't talk loudly enough.

The supreme satisfaction is to be able to despise one's neighbor and this fact goes far to account for religious intolerance. It is evidently consoling to reflect that the people next door are headed for hell.

I was raised by parents who really admired the religious leaders of the left, as many 60s and 70s liberals did.

Mr. Speaker, I am deeply concerned that many regions of this world are suffering from the effects of armed conflicts with religious aspects. I believe that the differences of faith are not the real reason for these conflicts.

I grew up in Nacogdoches, Texas... raised by my grandmother. We were very poor and had no indoor plumbing. My grandmother was a very religious woman, though, and she gave me a lot of faith and inner strength.

I call myself a naturalist as opposed to an atheist, but there are different styles. Some people just like to be close to nature. And some people actually worship nature, which is too wishy-washy because - like a lot of religious believers - they don't depend on facts.

Iran rejects weapons of mass destruction based on its belief system, its religious belief system, as well as well as its ethical standpoint.

But I wish to point out that it is entirely wrong to say that the Chinese are not religious.

Only through repentance and faith in Christ can anyone be saved. No religious activity will be sufficient, only true faith in Jesus Christ alone.

I don't think we should discriminate against an organization or congregation because they're religious, if they're doing good work. But government can't subsidize proselytizing or worship or religious activity. It can't.

Religion creates community, community creates altruism and altruism turns us away from self and towards the common good... There is something about the tenor of relationships within a religious community that makes it the best tutorial in citizenship and good neighborliness.

There is all the difference in the world between teaching children about religion and handing them over to be taught by the religious.

Theology is in disrepute among most Western intellectuals. The word is taken to mean a passe form of religious thinking that embraces irrationality and dogmatism. So too, Scholasticism.

To criticize a person for their race is manifestly irrational and ridiculous, but to criticize their religion, that is a right. That is a freedom. The freedom to criticize ideas, any ideas - even if they are sincerely held beliefs - is one of the fundamental freedoms of society. A law which attempts to say you can criticize and ridicule ideas as long as they are not religious ideas is a very peculiar law indeed.

Faith is not a notion, but a real strong essential hunger, an attracting or magnetic desire of Christ, which as it proceeds from a seed of the divine nature in us, so it attracts and unites with its like.

Ultimately, America's answer to the intolerant man is diversity, the very diversity which our heritage of religious freedom has inspired.

And also a lot of Muslims are no more religious then the average Swede. For them it's natural that human rights come first.

Indian names were either characteristic nicknames given in a playful spirit, deed names, birth names, or such as have a religious and symbolic meaning.

I find it difficult to imagine an afterlife, such as Christians, or at any rate many religious people, conceive it, believing that the conversations with relatives and friends interrupted here on earth will be continued in the hereafter.

So I went to English school, secondary English school, so forget going to Mecca for my religious education

When I go to Iran, I see... that there are all different shades and colors in Iran, from atheist to religious zealot. So Iran is no different than any other country. I mean, they are connected with the rest of the world.

We spend millions of dollars per year supplying more than adequate meals and a Koran to every detainee along with a prayer rug that meets their religious standards.

My religious philosophy is kindness. Try to be kind. That's something worth achieving.

The orthodox Jewish faith practically excludes woman from religious life.

The amount of things I have been through and the remarkable ways in which the body has reacted is just phenomenal. No wonder I became religious, because you don't know why something's happening to you and you don't know how you bounced back.

The saddest part of the human race is we're obsessed with this idea of 'us and them,' which is really a no-win situation, whether it's racial, cultural, religious or political.

Counter-knowledge covers the propagation of false legends and conspiracy theories often used for political purposes or fundamentalist religious propaganda.

As a Christian, I'm passionately opposed to American pretensions that we have special standing with God; to political office-seekers who play on our religious differences; and to the religious arrogance that says, 'Our truth is the only truth.'

Whether or not we are religious, respecting others should be seen as just as important as looking out for ourselves, yet it requires discipline to change our bad habits that cause pain to animals.

I don't want to participate in traditional Indian religious ceremonies - dance in a sun dance or pray in a sweat lodge or go on a vision quest with the help of a medicine man. The power of these ceremonies has an appeal, but I'm content with what little religion I already have.

Instead of plotting the demise of the traditional family, as some politicians and religious leaders would have you believe, gay people mow their lawns and watch 'American Idol' and video their children's concerts and have the same hopes and dreams that their straight counterparts do.

You have two choices with Obama. You either believe that he is a man of Christ... or you think he's a liar. And I'm surprised by the number of atheist free thinkers that support Obama, and their argument is essentially, 'He's lying about being religious 'cause you have to do that to get elected.' It's a horrible reason to like somebody.

It is true that traditional Christianity is losing some of its appeal among Americans, but that is a religious, not political, matter. It is worth remembering that the Jeffersonian 'wall of separation' between church and state has always been intended to protect the church from the state as much as the state from the church.

Not every religion has to have St. Augustine's attitude to sex. Why even in our culture marriages are celebrated in a church, everyone present knows what is going to happen that night, but that doesn't prevent it being a religious ceremony.

The great test of life is to see whether we will hearken to and obey God's commands in the midst of the storms of life.

Virtue is its own reward, and brings with it the truest and highest pleasure; but if we cultivate it only for pleasure's sake, we are selfish, not religious, and will never gain the pleasure, because we can never have the virtue.

At the time I perceived most religious men, particularly the pastors with all their talk about love, faith and relationship, as effeminate.

A religious life is a struggle and not a hymn.

Music is the most powerful form of communication in the world. It brings us all together. Even religion separates us, but a hit record unites us across religious beliefs, race, politics.

I confess that for fifteen years my efforts in education, and my hopes of success in establishing a system of national education, have always been associated with the idea of coupling the education of this country with the religious communities which exist.

While religious tolerance is surely better than religious war, tolerance is not without its liabilities. Our fear of provoking religious hatred has rendered us incapable of criticizing ideas that are now patently absurd and increasingly maladaptive.

I find it greatly disturbing that the Bush administration has used political and religious ideologies to influence national policy on science and medicine.

Canadians tend to be a bit more religious than most Europeans - though not more than the Poles or Ukrainians. Most important, their attitude to immigration and ethnic minorities is more positive than that of most Europeans.

We are so accustomed to think of religion as a thing between individual men and God that we can hardly enter into the idea of a religion in which a whole nation in its national organisation appears as the religious unit.

All people desire what they believe will make them happy. If a person is not full of desire for God, we can only conclude that he is engaged with another happiness.

The right to revolt has sources deep in our history.

If the machine of government is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law.

For many people who were never religious or who leave the religion of their childhood behind, it's the experience of having children of your own that brings an urgency to the question of what you believe.

The nicest characters in 'A Week in December' are, in fact, Muslims - and their religious devotion is one of the things that defines them.

If you are born in 1564, your dislocation from your parents' experience is very profound. You are the first generation who will have had all your religious experience in English, the first to have a countryman circumnavigate the globe. All the power and economic structures of the world are changing around you.

Every religious pioneer, including Jesus Christ, was persecuted by his contemporaries. But once people understand me, their turn can be dramatic like Saint Paul's.

Given the fact that most religions share basic values, it is most unfortunate that religious people can be played off against each other so easily. One possible reason for this may be that people do not know enough about other people's beliefs.

Abraham is such a fascinating figure. Three world religions - Judaism, Christianity, and Islam - all claim him as a patriarch. He was raised in a religious home. And yet he rejected religion in order to pursue a personal relationship with God.

Americans have not only a right but a responsibility to consider the values of those who seek to lead them - whether they arise from life experience, political ideology or religious belief.

No student of Chinese history can say that the Chinese are incapable of religious experience, even when judged by the standards of medieval Europe or pious India.

I think I'm a very religious person. I think I believe in God as much as any man does. I don't only believe in God, I know there's God.

I am here now, because I am supposed to be here. And I guess when it is my time to cross over there, I will be over there. I am not religious, but I am spiritual, honey. My day is coming!

Self-denial is indispensable to a strong character, and the highest kind comes from a religious stock.

In earlier times, so many people sang much more. You know as a kid you'd go to some kind of religious training and or summer camp or whatever it was and you'd learn to sing a lot of songs.

I have never pretended to be any kind of super-religious kind of man, but I feel very strongly that you can be funny without being dirty.

I have no beliefs of a religious kind.

I don't set out to transmit a message. I don't write with a political point of view. There are no religious overtones. Looking back at my books, I can say, 'Oh, yes, it is there.' But it's not in my mind when I write.

So one reason the science educators panic at the first sign of public rebellion is that they fear exposure of the implicit religious content in what they are teaching.

There is a continuum of values between the churches and the general community. What distinguishes the handling of these values in the churches is mainly the heavier dosage of religious vocabulary involved

Christians can bring peace to multi-religious Europe because we are able to understand the role of faith in the lives of other believers better than atheists.

I think most of our religious institutions are pretty corrupt, so they're not reliable. I think the Christian religion that I was brought up with has very little to do with Christ, really, and more an institutions that have built up around the church.

I do have a memo all the time because I need to be guided by something in my life. I'm not religious and I don't have idols, so something has to drive me.

Secular thinkers have no more been able to work free of the centuries-old Judeo-Christian culture than Christian theologians were able to work free of their inheritance of classical and pagan thought. The process... has not been the deletion and replacement of religious ideas but rather the assimilation and reinterpretation of religious ideas.

Anti-religious sneers are a hallmark of perpetual adolescents.

Mystery is a birthright of theology and faith, but you often do find religious people grasping for answers that shut things down and narrow what is possible.

There was no religious ceremony connected with marriage among us, while on the other hand the relation between man and woman was regarded as in itself mysterious and holy.