Man is made to adore and to obey: but if you will not command him, if you give him nothing to worship, he will fashion his own divinities, and find a chieftain in his own passions.

The religion that is afraid of science dishonors God and commits suicide.

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.

To know a person's religion we need not listen to his profession of faith but must find his brand of intolerance.

We are on the side of religion as opposed to religions, and we are among those who believe in the wretched inadequacy of sermons and the sublimity of prayer.

Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.

Religion is the opium of the masses.

Religion. A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable.

A cosmic philosophy is not constructed to fit a man; a cosmic philosophy is constructed to fit a cosmos. A man can no more possess a private religion than he can possess a private sun and moon.

Religion is like holding on to a rock in the middle of a raging river; faith is learning how to swim.