Inspirational Quotes on Religion

“Proxy religion involves too great a risk: you had better see to your soul's matters yourself, and leave them in no man's hands.”

“If God has really done something in Christ on which the salvation of the world depends, and if He has made it known, then it is a Christian duty to be intolerant of everything which ignores, denies, or explains it away.”

“... it is for God, when he pleases, to cast his enemies down to hell...”

“The big news of the Bible is not that you fight for God but that God fights for you.”

“Now having travelled from the pride of man in the High Renaissance and the Enlightenment down to the present despair, we can understand where modern people are. They have no place for a personal God. But equally they have no place for man as man, or for love, or for freedom, or for significance. This brings a crucial problem. Beginning only from man himself, people affirm that man is only a machine. But those who hold this position cannot live like machines! If they could, there would be no tensions in their intellectual position or in their lives. But even people who believe they are machines cannot live like machines, and thus they must “leap upstairs” against their reason and try to find something which gives meaning to life, even though to do so they have to deny their reason. This was a solution Leonardo da Vinci and the men of the Renaissance never would have accepted, even if, like Leonardo they ended their thinking in despondency. They would not have done so, for they would have considered it intellectual suicide to separate meaning and values from reason this way. And they would have been right. Such a solution is intellectual suicide, and one may question the intellectual integrity of those who accept such a position when their starting point was pride in the sufficiency of human reason.”

“When spirits fall, their darkness is revealed, for they are stripped of the garment of your light. By the misery and restlessness which they then suffer you make clear to us how noble a being is your rational creation, for nothing less than yourself suffices to give it rest and happiness. This means that it cannot find them in itself. For you, O God, will shine on the darkness about us. From you proceeds our garment of light, and our dusk shall be noonday.”

“There have been men before now who got so interested in proving the existence of God that they came to care nothing for God Himself. As if the Good Lord had nothing better to do than exist!”

“Until the evil man finds evil unmistakably present in his existence, in the form of pain, he is enclosed in illusion.”

“Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connections with private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked: Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice? And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.”

“It's pretty generally understood that men don't aspire after the absolute right, but only to do about as well as the rest of the world. Now, when any one speaks up, like a man, and says slavery is necessary to us, we can't get along without it, we should be beggared if we give it up, and, of course, we mean to hold on to it,—this is strong, clear, well-defined language; it has the respectability of truth to it; and, if we may judge by their practice, the majority of the world will bear us out in it. But when he begins to put on a long face, and snuffle, and quote Scripture, I incline to think he isn't much better than he should be.”

“Through technology the whole world has now become the media's parish, talk-show hosts the prophets, actors and musicians the priests, and any script will do for the Scriptures as long as moral constraints are removed. Sitting before a well-lit box is all the cultic performance needs, and each person can enthrone his or her own self as divine. Truth has been relegated to subjectivity; beauty has been subjugated to the beholder; and as millions are idiotized night after night, a global commune has been constructed with he arts enjoying a totalitarian rule.”

“One came out of the church with a kind of comfortable and satisfied feeling that something had been done that needed to be done, and that was all I knew about it.”

“...the spiritual life is the life of man's real self, the life of that interior self whose flame is so often allowed to be smothered under the ashes of anxiety and futile concern. The spiritual life is oriented toward God, rather than toward the immediate satisfaction of the material needs of life, but it is not, for all that, a life of unreality or a life of dreams. On the contrary, without a life of the spirit, our whole existence becomes unsubstantial and illusory. The life of the spirit, by integrating us in the real order established by God, puts us in the fullest possible contact with reality--not as we imagine it, but as it really is. It does so by making us aware of our own real selves, and placing them in the presence of God.”

“We [vowed religious; nuns, monks] want to be squares, and we want others to be square, also. That's what religious have been doing. They're part of a square society. And let me be quite clear about the fact that liberalism doesn't get you off this hook, because liberals are part of the square society, too. It's better to be a liberal than a conservative, but they're both equally square.”

“Jesus gave up His life to God, and by this He taught us that the only thing that life is worth living for is to give it back to God, even unto death.”

“God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, not of the philosophers and scholars...Joy, joy, joy, tears of joy...'This is life eternal that they might know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.' Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ...May I not fall from him forever...I will not forget your word. Amen.”

“With his Mozart enters the little immortal circle of those whose names, whose works, time will not forget, because eternity remembers them. And though it is a matter of indifference, when one has found entrance there, whether one stands highest or lowest, because in a certain sense all stand equally high, since all stand infinitely high, and though it is childish to dispute over the first and the last place here, as it is when children quarrel about the order assigned to them in the church at confirmation, I am still too much of a child, or rather I am like a young girl in love with Mozart, and I must have him in first place, cost what it may. And I will appeal to the parish clerk and to the priest and to the dean and to the bishop and to the whole consistory, and I will implore and adjure them to hear my prayer, and I will invoke the whole congregation on this matter, and if they refuse to hear me, if they refuse to grant my childish wish, I excommunicate myself, and renounce all fellowship with their modes of thought; and I will form a sect which not only gives Mozart first place, but which absolutely refuses to recognize any artist other than Mozart; and I shall beg Mozart to forgive me, because his music did not inspire me to great deeds, but turned me into a fool, who lost through him the little reason I had, and spent most of my time in quiet sadness humming what I do not understand, haunting like a specter day and night what I am not permitted to enter. Immortal Mozart! Thou, to whom I owe everything; to whom I owe the loss of my reason, the wonder that caused my soul to tremble, the fear that gripped my inmost being; thou, to whom I owe it that I did not pass through life without having been stirred by something. Thou, to whom I offer thanks that I did not die without having loved, even though my love became unhappy. Is it strange then that I should be more concerned for Mozart's glorification than for the happiest moment of my life, more jealous for his immortality than for my own existence? Aye, if he were taken away, if his name were erased from the memory of men, then would the last pillar be overthrown, which for me has kept everything from being hurled together into boundless chaos, into fearful nothningness.”

“With his Mozart enters the little immortal circle of those whose names, whose works, time will not forget, because eternity remembers them. And though it is a matter of indifference, when one has found entrance there, whether one stands highest or lowest, because in a certain sense all stand equally high, since all stand infinitely high, and though it is childish to dispute over the first and the last place here, as it is when children quarrel about the order assigned to them in the church at confirmation, I am still too much of a child, or rather I am like a young girl in love with Mozart, and I must have him in first place, cost what it may. And I will appeal to the parish clerk and to the priest and to the dean and to the bishop and to the whole consistory, and I will implore and adjure them to hear my prayer, and I will invoke the whole congregation on this matter, and if they refuse to hear me, if they refuse to grant my childish wish, I excommunicate myself, and renounce all fellowship with their modes of thought; and I will form a sect which not only gives Mozart first place, but which absolutely refuses to recognize any artist other than Mozart; and I shall beg Mozart to forgive me, because his music did not inspire me to great deeds, but turned me into a fool, who lost through him the little reason I had, and spent most of my time in quiet sadness humming what I do not understand, haunting like a specter day and night what I am not permitted to enter. Immortal Mozart! Thou, to whom I owe everything; to whom I owe the loss of my reason, the wonder that caused my soul to tremble, the fear that gripped my inmost being; thou, to whom I owe it that I did not pass through life without having been stirred by something. Thou, to whom I offer thanks that I did not die without having loved, even though my love became unhappy. Is it strange then that I should be more concerned for Mozart's glorification than for the happiest moment of my life, more jealous for his immortality than for my own existence? Aye, if he were taken away, if his name were erased from the memory of men, then would the last pillar be overthrown, which for me has kept everything from being hurled together into boundless chaos, into fearful nothingness.”

“A fé não constitui, portanto, um impulso de ordem estética; é de outra ordem muito mais elevada, justamente porque pressupõe a resignação. Não é o instinto imediato do coração, mas o paradoxo da vida.”

“Quem alcançou neste mundo grandeza igual à dessa bendita mulher, a mãe de Deus, a virgem Maria? No entanto, como se fala dela? A sua grandeza não provém do fato de ter sido bendita entre as mulheres, e se uma estranha coincidência não levasse a assembléia a pensar com a mesma desumanidade do predicador, qualquer jovem devia, seguramente, perguntar: Por que não fui eu também bendita entre as mulheres? Se se não possuísse outra resposta, de forma alguma acharia ter de rejeitar esta pergunta, pretextando a sua falta de senso; porque, no abstrato, em presença de um favor, todos temos mesmos direitos. São esquecidos a tribulação, a angústia, o paradoxo. Meu pensamento é tão puro como o de qualquer outro; e ele purifica-se, exercendo-se sobre as coisas. E se não se enobrecer pode-se então esperar pelo espanto; porque se essas imagens foram alguma vez evocadas jamais poderão ser esquecidas. E se contra elasse peca, extraem da sua muda cólera uma terrível vingança, mais terrível do que os rugidos de dez ferozes críticos. Maria,indubitavelmente, deu à luz o filho graças a um milagre, mas no decorrer de tal acontecimento foi como todas as outras mulheres, e esse tempo é o da angústia, da tribulação e do paradoxo. O anjo foi,sem dúvida, um espírito caritativo, mas não foi complacente porque não foi dizer a todas as outras virgens de Israel: Não desprezeis Maria, porque lhe sucedeu o extraordinário. Apresentou-se perante ela só e ninguém a pôde compreender. No entanto, que outra mulher foi mais ofendida do que Maria? Pois não é também verdade que aquele a quem Deus abençoa é também amaldiçoado com o mesmo sopro do seu espírito? É desta forma que se torna necessário, espiritualmente,compreender Maria. Ela não é, de maneira alguma, uma formosa dama que brinca com um deus menino, e até me sinto revoltado ao dizer isto e muito mais ao pensar na afetação e ligeireza de tal concepção. Apesar disso, quando diz: sou a serva do Senhor, ela é grande e imagino que não deve ser difícil explicar por que razão se tornou mãe de Deus. Não precisa, absolutamente nada, da admiração do mundo, tal como Abraão não necessita de lágrimas,porque nem ela foi uma heroína, nem ele foi um herói. E não se tornaram grandes por terem escapado à tribulação, ao desespero e ao paradoxo, mas precisamente porque sofreram tudo isso. Há grandeza em ouvir dizer ao poeta, quando apresenta o seu herói trágico à admiração dos homens: chorai por ele; merece-o; porque é grandioso merecer as lágrimas dos que são dignos de as derramar;há grandeza em ver o poeta conter a multidão, corrigir os homens e analisá-los um por um para verificar se são dignos de chorar pelo herói, porque as lágrimas dos vulgares chorões profanam o sagrado.Contudo ainda é mais grandioso que o cavaleiro da fé possa dizer ao nobre caráter que quer chorar por ele: não chores por mim, chora antes por ti próprio.”