1037) A cult is a religion with no political power.

Tom Wolfe
In Our Time (1980) [CQ]
posted by Kevin Harris [UAQ] (6/16/95)

1038) A myth is a religion in which no one any longer believes.

James Feibleman
Understanding Philosophy (1973)
quoted in The Cassell Dictionary of Cynical Quotations
Jonathon Green, ed. [PAQ]
posted by Kevin Harris [UAQ] (6/16/95)

[Note: cf. #393 Weinreich & #2420 Wilde.]

1039) Nothing more clearly show how little God esteems his gift to men of wealth, money, position and other worldly goods, than the way he distributes these, and the sort of men who are most amply provided with them.

Jean de la Bruyere
"Of Worldly Goods" in
Characters (1688) [CQ]
posted by Kevin Harris [UAQ] (6/16/95)

[Note: Often misquoted and misattributed to Dorothy Parker.]

1040) Truth, in the matters of religion, is simply the opinion that has survived.

Oscar Wilde
The Critic as Artist (1891)
posted by Kevin Harris [UAQ] (6/16/95)

1041) "Faith" means not wanting to know what is true.

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
The Antichrist (1888)[WQ]
posted by Kevin Harris [UAQ] (6/16/95)

1042) A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything.

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
The Antichrist (1888)
quoted in The Cassell Dictionary of Cynical Quotations
Jonathon Green, ed. [PAQ]
posted by Kevin Harris [UAQ] (6/16/95)

[Note: Possibly a simplification of Nietzsche's actual words (as translated):

That faith makes blessed under certain circumstances, that blessedness does not make of a fixed idea a true idea, that faith moves no mountains but puts mountains where there are none: a quick walk through a madhouse enlightens one sufficiently about this. [WQ]]

1043) I cannot believe in a God who wants to be praised all the time.

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (attributed)
posted by Kevin Harris [UAQ] (6/16/95)

1044) The more I study religions the more I am convinced that man never worshipped anything but himself.

Sir Richard F. Burton
"Terminal Essay: Social Conditions"
The Book of The Thousand Nights And A Night [WQ]
posted by Kevin Harris [UAQ] (6/16/95)

1045) Religion consists in a set of things which the average man thinks he believes & wishes he was certain of.

Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)
Notebooks & Journals v.2: 1877-1883 (1975) [QMT]
posted by Kevin Harris [UAQ] (6/16/95)

1046) Christian, n. One who follows the teachings of Christ insofar as they are not inconsistent with a life of sin.

Ambrose Bierce
The Devil's Dictionary (1911)
posted by Kevin Harris [UAQ] (6/16/95)

1047) Faith, n. Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel.

Ambrose Bierce
The Devil's Dictionary (1911)
posted by Kevin Harris [UAQ] (6/16/95)

1048) Scriptures, n. The sacred books of our holy religion, as distinguished from the false and profane writings on which all other faiths are based.

Ambrose Bierce
The Devil's Dictionary (1911)
posted by Kevin Harris [UAQ] (6/16/95)

1049) We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart.

H.L. Mencken
Minority Report: H.L. Mencken's Notebooks (1956) [WQ]
posted by Kevin Harris [UAQ] (6/16/95)

1050) Men rarely (if ever) manage to dream up a god superior to themselves. Most gods have the manners and morals of a spoiled child.

Robert Heinlein
Time Enough for Love (1973) [WQ]
posted by Kevin Harris [UAQ] (6/16/95)

1051) There are scores of thousands of human insects who are ready at a moment's notice to reveal the will of God on every possible subject.

George Bernard Shaw
"The Sin of Athanasius"
Treatise on Parents and Children (1910)
posted by Kevin Harris [UAQ] (6/16/95)

[Note: A fuller quotation:

We are overrun with Popes. From curates and governesses, who may claim a sort of professional standing, to parents and uncles and nurserymaids and school teachers and wiseacres generally, there are scores of thousands of human insects groping through our darkness by the feeble phosphorescence of their own tails, yet ready at a moment's notice to reveal the will of God on every possible subject; to explain how and why the universe was made (in my youth they added the exact date) and the circumstances under which it will cease to exist; to lay down precise rules of right and wrong conduct; to discriminate infallibly between virtuous and vicious character; and all this with such certainty that they are prepared to visit all the rigors of the law, and all the ruinous penalties of social ostracism on people, however harmless their actions maybe who venture to laugh at their monstrous conceit or to pay their assumptions the extravagant compliment of criticizing them.]

1052) Going to church doesn't make you a Christian anymore than going to a garage makes you a car.

unknown
(variously attributed to Garrison Keillor
and Laurence J. Peter)
posted by Kevin Harris [UAQ] (6/16/95)

1053) I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with senses, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use and by some other means to give us knowledge which we can attain by them.

Galileo Galilei
letter to Christina of Tuscany
quoted by Perry McAdow Rogers in
Aspects of Western Civilization: problems and sources in history (1988) [WQ]
posted by Kevin Harris [UAQ] (6/16/95)

1054) I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of the world, and do not find in our particular superstition [Christianity] one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology.

Thomas Jefferson
letter to Dr. Woods (undated)
quoted by John E. Remsburg in
Six Historic Americans: Thomas Jefferson
citing Franklin Steiner
"Thomas Jefferson, Freethinker" in
Religious Beliefs of Our Presidents (1936) [PAQ]
posted by Kevin Harris [UAQ] (6/16/95)

1030) I never think of the future. It comes soon enough.

Albert Einstein
interview given on the ship
Belgenland (12/1930) [ODQ]
in the Einstein Archive (36-570)
as from 1945-1946 [QE]
posted by Kevin Harris [UAQ] (6/16/95)

1031) Common sense is nothing more than a deposit of prejudices laid down by the mind before you reach eighteen.

Albert Einstein
quoted by Eric Temple Bell in
Mathematics, Queen and Servant of the Sciences
(1952) [WQ]; not listed in [QE]
variant version posted by Kevin Harris [UAQ] (6/16/95)

[Note: cf. #740]

1032) Science is a wonderful thing if one does not have to earn one's living at it.

Albert Einstein
letter to California student E. Holzapfel (3/1951)
quoted by Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffman in
Albert Einstein, the Human Side (1979) [QE]
Einstein Archive 59-1013
posted by Kevin Harris [UAQ] (6/16/95)

1033) The man who is thoroughly convinced of the universal operation of the law of causation cannot for a moment entertain the idea of a being who interferes in the course of events — provided, of course, that he takes the hypothesis of causality really seriously. He has no use for the religion of fear and equally little for social or moral religion. A God who rewards and punishes is inconceivable to him for the simple reason that a man's actions are determined by necessity, external and internal, so that in God's eyes he cannot be responsible, any more than an inanimate object is responsible for the motions it undergoes. Science has therefore been charged with undermining morality, but the charge is unjust. A man's ethical behavior should be based effectively on sympathy, education, and social relationships; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.

Albert Einstein
"Religion and Science"
New York Times Magazine (11/9/1930) [WQ]
reprinted in Ideas and Opinions (1954) [QE]
posted in part by Kevin Harris [UAQ] (6/16/95)

1034) The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving after rational knowledge.

Albert Einstein
"Science, Philosophy, and Religion" (1940)
Science, Philosophy and Religion, A Symposium (1941)
reprinted in Ideas and Opinions (1954)
as "Science and Religion" [QE]
Einstein Archive 28-523
posted by Kevin Harris [UAQ] (6/16/95)

1035) We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.

Albert Einstein (attributed)
not listed in [QE]
posted by Kevin Harris [UAQ] (6/16/95)

1036) The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.

Albert Einstein (attributed)
not listed in [QE]
posted by Kevin Harris [UAQ] (6/16/95)

[Note: While the thought has value, this quote seems unlikely to be legitimate. As Wikiquote says, "Einstein is one of those major iconic figures to whom many statements become attributed; unsourced attributions to him should usually be treated with some skepticism, and often a great deal of it." Other figures who attract attributions like magnets: Mark Twain, H.L. Mencken and Kurt Vonnegut. See #1662.]