Famous Quotes

"Even the highest forms of sacrificial worship present much that is repulsive to modern ideas, and in particular it requires an effort to reconcile our imagination to the bloody ritual which is prominent in almost every religion which has a strong sense of sin."

William Robertson Smith on Religion

More quotes about Religion

• "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."

  Dalai Lama on Religion

• "I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."

  Mahatma Gandhi on Religion

• "I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else."

  C. S. Lewis on Religion

• "Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither."

  C. S. Lewis on Religion

• "I would rather live my life as if there is a God and die to find out there isn't, than live my life as if there isn't and die to find out there is."

  Albert Camus on Religion

More quotes by William Robertson Smith

• "Even the highest forms of sacrificial worship present much that is repulsive to modern ideas, and in particular it requires an effort to reconcile our imagination to the bloody ritual which is prominent in almost every religion which has a strong sense of sin."

• "In all the antique religions, mythology takes the place of dogma that is, the sacred lore of priests and people... and these stories afford the only explanation that is offered of the precepts of religion and the prescribed rules of ritual."

• "But, strictly speaking, this mythology was no essential part of ancient religion, for it had no sacred sanction and no binding force on the worshippers."

• "In better times the religion of the tribe or state has nothing in common with the private and foreign superstitions or magical rites that savage terror may dictate to the individual."

• "Religion did not exist for the saving of souls but for the preservation and welfare of society, and in all that was necessary to this end every man had to take his part, or break with the domestic and political community to which he belonged."