William Robertson Smith Quotes

This, it may be said, is no more than a hypothesis... only of that force of precedent which in all times has been so strong to keep alive religious forms of which the original meaning is lost.

The Beatles were so big that it's hard for people not alive at the time to realize just how big they were.

My mother's side of the family is Methodist, which is how I was raised. It was conservative in that I had strong values - sitting down and eating with the family every day, listening to authority and going to church every week and having perfect attendance at Sunday school.

In early times every sort of advantage tends to become a military advantage; such is the best way, then, to keep it alive. But the Jewish advantage never did so; beginning in religion, contrary to a thousand analogies, it remained religious.

People may say what they like about the decay of Christianity the religious system that produced green Chartreuse can never really die.

I think I understand that religious faith which makes the holy brave and strong; my strength is just somewhere else--it's in myself...I do not fear what may await me, though I'm equally confident that nothing awaits.

Muslim women had to go out in purdah, that heavy sheet that covers even the eyes. Hindu women had to go out in the doli, a kind of closed sedan chair like a catafalque. My mother always told me about these things with bitterness and rage.

Finally, let us not forget the religious character of our origin. Our fathers were brought hither by their high veneration for the Christian religion. They journeyed by its light, and labored in its hope. They sought to incorporate its principles with the elements of their society, and to diffuse its influence through all their institutions, civil, political, or literary. Let us cherish these sentiments, and extend this influence still more widely; in full conviction that that is the happiest society which partakes in the highest degree of the mild and peaceful spirit of Christianity.

It is easy to be religious when religion is in fashion; but it is an evidence of strong faith and resolution to swim against a stream to heaven, and to appear for God when no one else appears for Him.

Every age has a kind of universal genius, which inclines those that live in it to some particular studies.

This country was founded by men and women who were dedicated or came to be dedicated to two propositions; first, a strong religious conviction, and secondly a recognition that this conviction could flourish only under a system of freedom.

We sometimes idealize the early church and want our churches to go back to the simple, old ways. We need to carefully read the history. Harmony takes work.

Past art is subject to change.

Let me tell you something: for hundreds of thousands of years, this kind of discussion would have been impossible to have, or those like us would have been having it at the risk of our lives. Religion now comes to us in this smiley-face, ingratiating way — because it’s had to give so much more ground and because we know so much more. But you’ve got no right to forget the way it behaved when it was strong, and when it really did believe that it had God on its side.

The many instances of forged miracles, and prophecies, and supernatural events, which, in all ages, have either been detected by contrary evidence, or which detect themselves by their absurdity, prove sufficiently the strong propensity of mankind to the extraordinary and marvellous, and ought reasonably to begat a suspicion against all relations of this kind.

Do you seriously envision St. Paul or Calvin or Luther opening bottles of Welch's Grape Juice in the sacristy before the service? Luther at least would turn over in his grave.

If the men of the Middle Ages... lived in filth and discomfort, it was not for any lack of ability to change their mode of life; it was because they chose to live this way, because filth and discomfort fitted in with their principles and prejudices, political, moral, and religious.... It was in the power of medieval... craftsmen to create armchairs and sofas that might have rivaled in comfort those of today

A classic is a book that survives the circumstances that made it possible yet alone keeps those circumstances alive.

Christianity is a pestilent superstition.

The characteristic human trait is not awareness but conformity, and the characteristic result is religious warfare.

Most jobs are outsourced to the past, they aren't outsourced to India or Mexico or Pakistan or anywhere else.

What used to help us to cope with transience was stuff like, extended families all living in one place, or very strong religious beliefs, or a tribe that would outlive you. That stuff is getting weaker.

The 1947 Court (Everson v. Board of Education) for the first time had used only Jefferson's metaphor - completely divorced from its context and intent.

We should think about whether canonizations, which are an invention of the Middle Ages, still make sense today.

The union of a man and a woman is the most enduring human institution, honored and encouraged in all cultures and by every religious faith." ... "Marriage cannot be severed from its cultural, religious and natural roots without weakening the good influence of society.