I allowed myself the supernatural, the transcendent, because, I told myself, our love of metaphor is pre-religious, born of our need to express what is inexpressible, our dreams of otherness, of more.
[W]hat makes patriotic and religious fanatics such dangerous opponents is not the deaths of the fanatics themselves, but their willingness to accept the deaths of a fraction of their number in order to annihilate or crush their infidel enemy.
Aunt Lavinia always had a near-religious belief that it was wicked to inflict one's personal despair on others. Any display of self-pity or self-dissatisfaction she saw as a social cruelty that was very nearly criminal.
A person does not have to be religious to reach the top of the Ladder of Success; but every one that step onto the Ladder of Success, must have hope.
A degree of culture, and assuredly a very high one, is attained when man rises above superstitions and religious notions and fears, and, for instance, no longer believes in guardian angels or in original sin, and has also ceased to talk of the salvat...
By increasing the amount of Torah (obligatory religious laws) in the world, they were extending His presence in the world and making it more effective.
Her religious beliefs went first, for all she could ask of a god, or of immortality, was the gift of a place where daughters love their mothers; the other attributes of Heaven you could have for a song.
For at least two thirds of our miseries spring from human stupidity, human malice and those great motivators and justifiers of malice and stupidity, idealism, dogmatism and proselytizing zeal on behalf of religious or political idols
New Age values are conscious evolution, a non-sectarian society, a non-military culture, global sharing, healing the environment, sustainable economies, self-determination, social justice, economic empowerment of the poor, love, compassion in action,...
The definition of Christian art is to be found in its subject and its spirit. Everything, sacred and profane, belongs to it. God does not ask for “religious” art or “Catholic” art. The art he wants for himself is Art, with all its teeth.
Unlike 'other' religious belief systems in competition with Christianity, we have not been called to become 'absorbed' into the deity but rather brought into communion with God through union with Christ thereby maintaining our unique individuality an...
But to unite in a permanent religious institution which is not to be subject to doubt before the public even in the lifetime of one man, and thereby to make a period of time fruitless in the progress of mankind toward improvement, thus working to the...
A smile flitted across War's mouth, hidden by her helmet. She had little patience for religion (although she approved heartily of the religious fanatics who sought to cleanse the world of heresy), and the only faith War had was in cold steel and hot ...
Men have looked away from themselves and at things so long that they have come to esteem the religious, learned and civil institutions as guards of property, and they deprecate assaults on these, because they feel them to be assaults on property. The...
Understanding is the reward of obedience. Obedience is the key to every door. I am perplexed at the stupidity of the ordinary religious being. In the most practical of all matters he will talk and speculate and try to feel, but he will not set himsel...
Like overzealous religious converts, climbers originally from the lower rungs of society tend to go overboard when they ape the upper class.
With so much effort being poured into church growth, so much press being given to the benefits of faith, and so much flexing of religious muscle in the public square, the poor in spirit have no one but Jesus to call them blessed anymore.
I think all the politicians in Brazil use God. They always present themselves as the defenders of God. This is because power searches for its legitimation starting from God, religious legitimation. (Carlos Mesers, p. 123)
Since Alice had never received any religious instruction, and since she had led a blameless life, she never thought of her awful luck as being anything but accidents in a very busy place. Good for her.
If professional religious leaders cannot instruct us in mythological lore, our artists and creative writers can perhaps step into this priestly role and bring fresh insight to our lost and damaged role.
was not personally religious; his most immediate and consistent motivation was a desire for recognition as the founding genius of rocket science.
