Niccolo Machiavelli Quotes

I admire the serene assurance of those who have religious faith. It is wonderful to observe the calm confidence of a Christian with four aces.

He that puts on a religious habit abroad to gain himself a great name among men, and at the same time lives like an atheist at home, shall at the last be uncovered by God and presented before all the world for a most outrageous hypocrite.

Look into the world--how often do you behold a sordid wretch, whose straight heart is open to no man's affliction, taking shelterbehind an appearance of piety, and putting on the garb of religion, which none but the merciful and compassionate have a title to wear.

When was it that men agreed to respect the appearance and not the reality?

For man may pious texts repeat, And yet religion have no inward seat

Whenever we find that our religious life is making us feel that we are good - above all, that we are better than someone else - I think we may be sure that we are being acted on, not by God, but by the devil.

Prayer has never made you right, because right now our world of Islam is filled with abject hypocrisy in its religiosity.

Great Hypocrites are the real atheists.

Really, there is no infidelity, nowadays, so great as that which prays, and keeps the Sabbath, and rebuilds the churches. The sealer of the South Pacific preaches a truer doctrine.

Sunday is a day given over by Americans to wishing that the themselves were dead and in Heaven, and that their neighbors were dead and in Hell.

Turkey: A large bird whose flesh, when eaten on certain religious anniversaries has the peculiar property of attesting piety and gratitude.

Beware of the guy praying loudest in the amen corner.

No profit to honour, no honour to Religion.

The worst thing about religion was religious people.

Periodical godliness is perpetual hypocrisy.

If I am right, then (religious fundamentalists) will not go to Heaven, because there is no Heaven. If they are right, then they will not go to Heaven, because they are hypocrites.

Oh, for a forty-parson power to chant Thy praise, Hypocrisy! Oh, for a hymn Loud as the virtues thou dost loudly vaunt, Not practise!

I have more respect for somebody who's like, 'Yeah I like to party, so screw off,' then for Tara , who talks about not partying and ends up passed out underneath a Subway, not a subway station, but the actual sandwich shop - two days later.

A man’s got to keep up appearances. I’ll be universally detested if everyone realizes how perfect you are.

That raises a terrible question. How is it that people who are quite obviously eaten up with Pride can say they believe in God and appear to themselves very religious? I am afraid it means they are worshiping an imaginary God.

... what such people miscall their religion, is a vent for their bad humours and arrogance.

Since the primary motive of the evil is disguise, one of the places evil people are most likely to be found is within the church. What better way to conceal one's evil from oneself as well as from others than to be a deacon or some other highly visible form of Christian within our culture

By the cold and religious we were taken in hand - shown how to feel good; and told to feel bad.

Some of the most unkind,judgmental people I've ever known go to church every Sunday and read the Bible. I don't know how some people are able to disassociate their own cruelty and shortcomings from their religious obligations and convictions, but many are able to do that.

The religious leader is the most untrustworthy of leaders; in no other station do we have so many opportunities for pride, covetousness and lust, and with so many excellent disguises to keep such ignobility from being found out and called to account.