Hosea Ballou Quotes

... the yearly expenses of the existing religious systemexceed in these United States twenty millions of dollars. Twenty millions! For teaching what? Things unseen and causes unknown!... Twenty millions would more than suffice to make us wise; and alas! do they not more than suffice to make us foolish?

I have been the most religious person since I was 2 years old. I always felt this crazy connection to God.

Eka-Nishtha or devotion to one ideal is absolutely necessary for the beginner in the practice of religious devotion.

When holy and devout religious men are at their beads, 'tis hard to draw them thence; so sweet is zealous contemplation.

To be religious is to have one's attention fixed on God and on one's neighbour in relation to God.

[Before being burned at the stake for her faith:] Hold the cross high so I may see it through the flames.

Religion to me is devotion to work and devotedly working is being religious.

No, I'm not religious, I'm sorry to say. But I was once and shall be again. There is no time now to be religious." "No time. Does it need time to be religious?" "Oh, yes. To be religious you must have time and, even more, independence of time. You can't be religious in earnest and at the same time live in actual things and still take them seriously, time and money and the Odéon Bar and all that.

All places are places of worship to a Christian. Wherever he is, he ought to be in a worshiping frame of mind.

We are driven to confess that we actually care more for religion than we do for religious theories and ideas: and in merely making that distinction between religion and its doctrine-elements, have we not already relegated the latter to an external and subordinate position? Have we not asserted that "religion itself" has some other essence or constitution than mere idea or thought?

Let us read our Bibles reverently and diligently, with an honest determination to believe and practice all we find in them.

In contemporary American culture, the religions are more and more treated as just passing beliefs - almost as fads - rather than as the fundaments upon which the devout build their lives.

Much of the left-liberal elite despise traditional religious beliefs ... in general, they are profoundly uncomfortable with religious institutions and the traditional values they embody.

y feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders.

All the professors in all the religious colleges in this country rolled into one, would not equal Charles Darwin.

Whole days and weeks have I spent prostrate on the ground in silent or vocal prayer.

We are never more like Christ than in prayers of intercession.

Prayer is more than a wish; it is the voice of faith directed to God.

I am approached with the most opposite opinions and advice, and that by religious men, who are equally certain that they represent the Divine will. ... I hope it will not be irreverent for me to say that if it is probable that God would reveal his will to others, on a point so connected with my duty, it might be supposed he would reveal it directly to me... These are not, however, the days of miracles ... I must study the plain physical facts of the case, ascertain what is possible, and learn what appears to be wise and right.

If you will not worship God seven days a week, you do not worship Him one day a week.

I'm in the hands of Jesus.

I know the author of my every breath, oh that's Jesus.

It is the great support and solace of the saints in all the distresses that befall them here, that there is a wise Spirit sitting in all the wheels of motion, and governing the most eccentric creatures and their most pernicious designs to blessed and happy issues.

The main measure of your devotion to God is not your devotional life. It is simply your life.

Every vocation becomes more agreeable when united with devotion.