Umberto Eco Quotes

I think religion has caused so much catastrophe in the world.

I don't criticise anybody, but I just don't understand religion. Like I don't understand nationalism. These are the two things that cause wars. I don't understand why they are supposed to be good things.

I personally am not religious. I think, put into the wrong hands, it's incredibly dangerous. It's the reason for most of the wars that have been fought around the world, and it's pretty ridiculous when you think about what they're actually arguing over.

Blood is shed over politics, religion and the two in combination.

Toward no crimes have men shown themselves so cold- bloodedly cruel as in punishing differences of belief.

In religious and in secular affairs, the more fervent beliefs attract followers. If you are a moderate in any respect - if you're a moderate on abortion, if you're a moderate on gun control, or if you're a moderate in your religious faith - it doesn't evolve into a crusade where you're either right or wrong, good or bad, with us or against us.

A faith is something you die for, a doctrine is something you kill for. There is all the difference in the world.

All religion seems to need to prove that it's the only truth. And that's where it turns demonic. Because that's when you get religious wars and persecutions and burning heretics at the stake.

Sectarianism, bigotry, and it's horrible descendant, fanaticism, have long possessed this beautiful Earth. They have filled the earth with violence, drenched it often and often with human blood, destroyed civilization, and sent whole nations to despair. Had it not been for these horrible demons, human society would be far more advanced than it is now.

Religious hatreds tend to be merciless and absolute.

Religion has been so divisive that people have killed one another, believing they were doing the work of God.

In our country are evangelists and zealots of many different political, economic and religious persuasions whose fanatical conviction is that all thought is divinely classified into two kinds -- that which is their own and that which is false and dangerous.

For me, tribalism and religion are basically the big reasons we're in trouble. Patriotism, tribalism, and religion.

That religious earnestness forever tends toward fright and hence towards brittleness and inquisition is clear enough in mythology and history.

I am thankful that all the people in the world who absolutely, positively, know what God wants, usually kill mostly each other.

All religions develop, become exclusive, become divisive and quarrelsome.

The philosopher has never killed any priests, whereas the priest has killed a great many philosophers.

It's impossible to consider living without ideals. However, when ideas lead to ideology, that's a very dangerous thing. Ideology then leads to creating the image of an enemy, and it leads to the murder and massacre that we've seen since the beginning of time.

People nearly always believe, and are willing to back it up with weapons and cruelty, that their religion and way of life is better than the other person's.

Each side had its uninformed fanatics. And each side had political leaders who fanned the flames with their rhetoric.

Jewish extremism and Islamic fanaticism fed each other.

There is nothing as potentially polarizing as religion.

The whole history of the last thousands of years has been a history of religious persecutions and wars, pogroms, jihads, crusades. I find it all very regrettable, to say the least

Holy war against lackeys, Jews, Christians and atheists.

We don't really have elections; we fight crusades. Each side usually believes that it, and it alone, represents the true faith.