Eric Hoffer Quotes

It appears to be in the nature of religion itself to be prejudiced against those who are different.

In my opinion, there is one singular problem with religions in general: they are exclusive. To me, this exclusivity is not right.

Religion doesn't make people bigots. People are bigots and they use religion to justify their ideology.

Bigotry murders religion to frighten fools with her ghost.

There are atheists and Christians, and there are people in both groups who are a little too heavy-handed.

You're always going to have extremists in every religion.

People nearly always believe, and are willing to back it up with weapons and cruelty, that their religion and way of life is better than the other person's.

Religious clerics have a big share in the rise on intolerance towards minorities. A country like Pakistan where literacy rate is low and people are naïve when it comes on opinion making, it becomes easy to be successful in manipulating people’s minds. The manipulation of their opinions by those who are extremists in their views and beliefs always meet disaster. These clerics have played an ugly role most of the times and their preaching of hate speech always led to more sufferings and disaster for minorities

The opposite of faith is not doubt: It is certainty. It is madness. You can tell you have created God in your own image when it turns out that he or she hates all the same people you do.

When people unfortunately use religion to facilitate their envy, arrogance and hate, communalism surfaces.

Religious wars are not caused by the fact that there is more than one religion, but by the spirit of intolerance... the spread of which can only be regarded as the total eclipse of human reason.

I don't subscribe to organised religion. I've travelled enough to see that adherents of organised religion often attack adherents of other religions.

A faith is something you die for, a doctrine is something you kill for. There is all the difference in the world.

My faith doesn't go over real well in Hollywood.

I enjoy being Jewish, but I'm an atheist... I hate fundamentalism in all its forms. Jews, Catholics, Baptists, I think they are all potty and capable of destroying the world.

One of the most constant characteristics of beliefs is their intolerance. The stronger the belief, the greater its intolerance. Men dominated by a certitude cannot tolerate those who do not accept it.

There is nothing that dies so hard and rallies so often as intolerance.

We in the United States are pluralistic respecting ultimate beliefs. Profound values exist apart from a devotion to a god.

If my son were to oppose the Catholic Church, I myself would carry the faggots to burn him.

If there are infidels here, then beat them up. Do not tolerate them…. They are like crawling worms, snakes, and maggots.

Prejudice locks the mind. Nothing can enter. Nothing true can escape.

You say you're supposed to be nice to the Episcopalians and the Presbyterians and the Methodists and this, that, and the other thing. Nonsense, I don't have to be nice to the spirit of the Antichrist.

Islam is a malignant cancer.

I personally am not religious. I think, put into the wrong hands, it's incredibly dangerous. It's the reason for most of the wars that have been fought around the world, and it's pretty ridiculous when you think about what they're actually arguing over.

Where you are born, your parent's beliefs, or your ethnic background should not make you a target.