William Barclay Quotes

Religion is not going to come up with any new arguments.

If you replace the word God in the Bible with the word Truth, it reads exactly right.

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

A religion without mystery must be a religion without God.

Mysticism, poor mysticism! When it is underestimated and oversimplified, it comes down from its original sphere and stands beside religion.

The proof that God has revealed himself to man by special and express communications, and that Christianity constitutes that revelation, is no part of these inquiries.

The living Church of the redeemed is his book. He founded a religion of the living spirit, not of a written code, like the Mosaic law. Yet his words and deeds are recorded by as honest and reliable witnesses as ever put pen to paper.

The object of religion is the imagination, that deep and inexhaustible font of our understanding and symbolizing our deepest possibilities.

Religion may have become a codification of morality, and it may fortify it, but it's not the origin of it.

Religion can be both good and bad - it is spirituality that counts.

The Constitution is man-made, so it is not perfect. It's not the basis of my beliefs. My belief system is based on the Scriptures which come from God.

Religion has endured since the dawn of human consciousness precisely because it encompasses so much of being human. No idea has endured so long, gathered up so many disparate needs and wants and feelings, and inspired so many different paths towards understanding it.

One is often told that it is a very wrong thing to attack religion, because religion makes men virtuous. So I am told; I have not noticed it.

I see no good reasons why the views given in this volume should shock the religious sensibilities of anyone.

Indeed, in view of its function, religion stands in greater need of a rational foundation of its ultimate principles than even the dogmas of science.

We can no more do without spirituality than we can do without food, shelter, or clothing.

Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet.

The main business of religions is to purify, control, and restrain that excessive and exclusive taste for well-being which men acquire in times of equality.

Every man eventually is backed up to the wall of faith, and there he must make his stand.

Religion is not a popular error; it is a great instinctive truth, sensed by the people, expressed by the people.

The best thing about science is that hard, empirical answers are always there if you look hard enough. The best thing about religion is that the very absence of that certainty is what requires - and gives rise to - deep feelings of faith.

I speak to God every day.

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

Ever since I was young, I was always interested in exploring spirituality. I know that there are many paths to God, there is not just one path.

Now I think one of the reasons why religion developed in the way that it did over the centuries was precisely to curb this murderous bent that we have as human beings.