Anthony de Mello Quotes

One of the things my family taught me - I think very important in religion and science - is that you must be ready to stand up for what you think. Decide what you really think is best, and stick with it.

I'd been raised Mormon, but there comes a time where you are not following what you've been taught, but discovering for yourself if it's true.

Doubt your doubts before you doubt your beliefs.

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

Doubt is part of all religion. All the religious thinkers were doubters.

My father was the superintendent of the churches in the state of Montana. He was content in his beliefs. He befit the term 'true Christian.' He would turn the other cheek. He was truly a man of peace.

There are atheists and Christians, and there are people in both groups who are a little too heavy-handed.

I would say I have a complicated relationship with institutionalized religion.

As a teenager, I increasingly had questions about religion to which I found no good answers.

I value my Catholic background very much. It taught me not to be afraid of rigorous thought, for one thing.

I enjoy being Jewish, but I'm an atheist... I hate fundamentalism in all its forms. Jews, Catholics, Baptists, I think they are all potty and capable of destroying the world.

I have a great love and respect for religion, great love and respect for atheism. What I hate is agnosticism, people who do not choose.

I have learned not to think little of any one's belief, no matter how strange it may be. I have tried to keep an open mind, and it is not the ordinary things of life that could close it, but the strange things, the extraordinary things, the things that make one doubt if they be mad or sane.

The scientist insists on verification; the religious theologian does not; the philosopher sometimes does and sometimes does not

In the long term we can hope that religion will change the nature of man and reduce conflict. But history is not encouraging in this respect. The bloodiest wars in history have been religious wars

It is time that we admitted that faith is nothing more than the license religious people give one another to keep believing when reasons fail.

Buddhism strongly discourages blind faith and fanaticism.

I come from a very religious background.And actually I remained in it. All my anger I describe in my quarrels with God in Auschwitz, but you know I used to pray every day.

My fear is greater than my faith, but I walk the missionary way.

Credulity as a character trait is encouraged in every child who grows up with religious training, which invariably insists on the virtue of blind faith and the sinfulness of doubting and questioning.

It seems to me that the bane of our country is a profession of faith either with no basis of real belief, or with no proper examination of the grounds on which the creed is supposed to rest.

fanaticism is the only way to put an end to the doubts that constantly trouble the human soul.

I'm very anti-religious because religion tends to disembody you.

If you can make any religion look idiotic, chances are you haven't understood that religion.

Our faith is an astounding thing-astounding that I should believe him to be the Son of God who is suspended on the cross, whom I have never seen, with whom I have never become acquainted.