Religion

I have an everyday religion that works for me.

Love yourself first, and everything else falls into line.

                                    -- Lucille Ball

In the faces of men and women I see God.

                        -- Walt Whitman

Drizzt: I carried an internal code of morals with me on my trek, though whether I was born with it or it was imparted to me . . .or whether it simply developed from my perceptions–I cannot ever know.

Montolio: You view the gods as entities without. You see them as physical beings trying to control our actions for their own ends, and thus you, in your stubborn independence, reject them. The gods are within, I say, whether one has named his own or not. You merely never had a name to put on your heart. You have been following them all of your life. . .I offer you a name for it, that is all, and an ideal of behavior personified, an example that you might follow in times that you stray from what you know is true.

                        --  R.A. Salvatore, Sojourn–The Dark Elf Trilogy

Religious experiences which are as real as life to some may be incomprehensible to others.

            -- William O. Douglas, opinion, United States v. Ballard, 1944

Agnes Whistling Elk:  We stand where two worlds come together, the spiritual and the physical. We are in the womb of our mother, the earth. All things are contained here.

                        -- Lynn Andrews, Flight of the Seventh Moon

In the matter of religion, people eagerly fasten their eyes on the difference between their own creed and yours; whilst the charm of the study is in finding the agreements and identities in all the religions of humanity.

                        -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

The problem to be faced is:

how to combine loyalty to one's own tradition

with reverence for different traditions.

                        --  Abraham Joshua Heschel

True religion is real living;

living with all one's soul,

with all one's goodness and righteousness.

                        -- Albert Einstein

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.

                        -- Aldous Huxley

Why not let people differ about their answers to the great mysteries of the Universe? Let each seek one's own way to the highest, to one's own sense of supreme loyalty in life, one's ideal of life. Let each philosophy, each world-view bring forth its truth and beauty to a larger perspective, that people may grow in vision, stature and dedication.

                                                -- Algernon Black

Religion is to do right. It is to love, it is to serve, it is to think, it is to be humble.

                        -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quiet, alone with the heavens, nature and God. Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be and that God wishes to see people happy, amidst the simple beauty of nature.

                                    -- Anne Frank

Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.

                        -- Blaise Pascal

Religions are many and diverse, but reason and goodness are one.

                        -- Elbert Hubbard

This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness.

                        --  His Holiness the Dalai Lama

All human beings have an innate need to hear and tell stories and to have a story to live by. . .religion, whatever else it has done, has provided one of the main ways of meeting this abiding need.

                                                -- Harvey Cox

If the concept of God has any validity or any use, it can only be to make us larger, freer, and more loving. If God cannot do this, then it is time we got rid of Him.

                        -- James Baldwin

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

                        --  Jonathan Swift

When I do good, I feel good; when I do bad, I feel bad. That's my religion.

                        -- Abraham Lincoln

All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree. All these aspirations are directed toward ennobling man's life, lifting it from the sphere of mere physical existence and leading the individual towards freedom.

                                    -- Albert Einstein

Man is the religious animal. He is the only religious animal. He is the only animal that has the True Religion–several of them. He is the only animal that loves his neighbor as himself and cuts his throat, if his theology isn't straight. He has made a graveyard of the globe in trying his honest best to smooth his brother's path to happiness and heaven.

                        -- Mark Twain

Religion can be defined as a system of beliefs and practices by means of which a group of people struggles with the ultimate problems of human life.

                                    -- Milton Yinger

Those who say religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion is.

                        -- Mohandas K. Gandhi

The god of the cannibals will be a cannibal, of the crusaders a crusader, and of the merchants a merchant.

                                    -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Life becomes religious whenever we make it so: when some new light is seen, when some deeper appreciation is felt, when some larger outlook is gained, when some nobler purpose is formed, when some task is well done.

                        -- Sophia Lyon Fahs

I never told my own religion nor scrutinized that of another. I never attempted to make a convert, nor wished to change another's creed. I am satisfied that yours must be an excellent religion to have produced a life of such exemplary virtue and correctness. For it is in our lives, and not from our words, that our religion must be judged.

                                    -- Thomas Jefferson

My country is the world, and my religion is to do good.

                        -- Thomas Paine