William Dean Howells Quotes

In every religion there is an element of the supernatural, varying with the influence of pure reason over its devotees.

Religion is everywhere. There are no human societies without it, whether they acknowledge it as a religion or not.

Don't be confused that my interest in religion, faith, and spirituality is driven by any sense of faith or spirituality of my own.

The world of religion isn't a logical world; that's why children like it. It's a world of worked-out fantasies, very similar to children's stories or fairy tales.

Religion is an illusion and it derives its strength from the fact that it falls in with our instinctual desires.

Religion is an irrational construct.

I am fascinated with religion or things that people believe in and question that. I think it's interesting.

The more I learned about religion in Africa, the more intrigued I became. It was as if the continent was gripped with religious fervor. And the center of it was Uganda.

My theory is if you have a religion, it's a good one. Because some people don't have any at all.

Human societies, like human beings, live by faith and die when faith dies.

Americans know more about religion than almost any other topic.

I hold that religion and faith are two different things.

I'm not a member of any faith community, and I think faith is a deeply personal issue that individuals should deal with in their private lives.

I believe religion is important for every person.

Religion, oh, just another of those numerous failures resulting from an attempt to popularize art.

Superstition is only the fear of belief, while religion is the confidence.

Religion is a mixed blessing.

I think the world would be much poorer without religion, speaking generally.

Religion has been an important part of my understanding, my inquiry into what it means to be human.

You can't write about the past and ignore religion. It was such a fundamental, mind-shaping, driving force for pre-modern societies. I'm very interested in what religion does to us - its capacity to create love and empathy or hatred and violence.

Religion has a good place and it has its good people.

I'm actually an evangelical atheist, but there is something I recognise about religion: that it gives people a chance to surrender.

I'm not Catholic. I don't believe in God. But at the same time, I'm obsessed by the sacred, by spirituality. The question of redemption has been present well before Christianity, but as French people are a bit stupid, they see all that in religious terms.

Religion is the frozen thought of man out of which they build temples.

I don't really like the word 'religion.' To me, that's like rules and regulations and paying money to send up prayers. That kind of all weirds me out, honestly.