A collection of quotes on religion from a number of sources- some funny, some serious, some critical. Quotes are loosely grouped by subject.

God:

"Let nothing disturb you. Let nothing frighten you. Everything passes away -Except God." Saint Theresa

"The best way to know God is to love many things." Vincent Van Gogh

"Before you speak, it is necessary for you to listen, for God speaks in the silence of the heart." Mother Theresa

"I'm not into isms and asms.There isn't a Catholic moon and a Baptist sun. I know the universal God is universal.... I feel that the same God-force that is the mother and father of the pope is also the mother and father of the loneliest wino on the planet." Dick Gregory

"God is the inner principle of all movement, the only identity which already fulfils and illuminates the universe. Everything is incorporated in this one principle, because it encloses infinity, it includes everything, and there is nothing that could be outside of it. " Giordano Bruno

Reality:

"I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly dreaming that I am a man." Chuang Tzu

"Because our representation of reality is so much easier to grasp than reality itself, we tend to confuse the two and to take our concepts and symbols for reality." Friitjof Capra

"The inner man is the substantial reality; while the other one is only an apparition." - Paracelsus

Luminous beings are we - not this crude matter. Yoda

Science:

"The priests used to say that faith can move mountains, and nobody believed them. Today the scientists say that they can level mountains, and nobody doubts them." Joseph Campbell

Sex:

"Life in Lubbock, Texas, taught me two things: One is that God loves you and you're going to burn in hell. The other is that sex is the most awful, filthy thing on earth and you should save it for someone you love." Butch Hancock

Belief:

The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact than a drunken man is happier than a sober one."- George Bernard Shaw

"Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. Do not believe in anything because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason, and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, accept it and live up to it." Buddha

"Small amounts of philosophy lead to atheism, but larger amounts bring us back to God." Francis Bacon

"Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear." Thomas Jefferson

"Man is a being born to believe. And if no church comes forward with its title-deeds of truth to guide him, he will find altars and idols in his own heart and his own imagination." Benjamin Disraeli

"There are few people so stubborn in their atheism who, when danger is pressing in, will not acknowledge the divine power." Plato

"Faith is the substance of things hoped for, The evidence of things not seen." Hebrews 11:1

"You are never dedicated to something you have complete confidence in. No is fanatically shouting that the sun is going to rise tomorrow. They know is going to rise tomorrow. When people are fanatically dedicated to political or religious faiths or any other kinds of dogmas or goals, it's always because these dogmas or goals are in doubt. " Robert M. Pirsig

"Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important." Clive Staples Lewis

"Religion is an attempt to get control over the sensory world, in which we are placed, by means of the wish-world which we have developed inside us as a result of biological and psychological necessites." Sigmund Freud

"Then there are the Christian Satanists, defined as those who are attracted to the iconography of Satanism but can't seem to break away from Christianity's definitions. They continue to work within a primitive framework of Good Vs. Evil, taking the part of Evil instead of Good. They rebel against Christianity, but using the same rules. They may know no more of Satanism than what they see on record jackets. It's a last-ditch effort to preserve their belief system." Anton LaVey

Scripture:

"For Scripture is the school of the Holy Spirit, in which, as nothing is omitted that is both necessary and useful to know, so nothing is taught but what is expedient to know. Therefore we must guard against depriving believers of anything disclosed about predestination in Scripture, lest we seem either wickedly to defraud them of the blessing of their God or to accuse and scoff at the Holy Spirit for having published what it is in any way profitable to suppress." John Calvin

"If ye continue in the faith grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel, which ye have heard, and which was preached to every creature which is under heaven; whereof I Paul am made a minister" Col 1:23 23 Bible (KJV)

These are the manifestations of Horus, a thousand souls in his train, an army marching against darkness. These are souls returning to earth, men and women beautified.........In the house of death there awaits a being of darkness whose eyebrows swim on his forehead like fishes....I shall not fall under flashing knives I shall not burn up in the cauldron.... I have seen the face of evil----a face full of burns and scars, tortures inflicted upon the self.  He would scald his own chest and blame it on others. He would slash his own wrists and blame it on the gods... Now is the day of the joining of opposites, of the mingling of the dust of flesh with the dust of the coffin. This is the day of flow, the living ether returned to air, the maker of forms assuming new form.  This is the day without end---the passage into light itself the joining of Osiris to Ra. Egyptian Book of the dead

There are, it may be, so many voices in the world, and none of them is without meaning.   Paul of Tarsus, First letter to the Corinthians

Love:

"This is love: to fly toward a secret sky, to cause a hundred veils to fall each moment. First to let go of life. Finally, to take a step without feet. " Rumi

"Driven by the force of love the fragments of the world seek each other that the world may come into being." Teilhard de Chardin

"I love you when you bow in your mosque, kneel in your temple, pray in your church. For you and I are sons of one religion, and it is the spirit." Kahlil Gibran

"Love is the Law." Aleister Crowley

"The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove than the hunger for bread." Mother Teresa

Miracles & Magick:

Magic is the art and science of changing consciousness at will. Dion Fortune

"The magic begins in you. Feel your own energy, and realize similar energy exists within the Earth, stones, plants, water, wind, fire, colors, and animals." Scott Cunningham

"Your talent is God's gift to you. What you do with it is your gift back to God." Leo Buscaglia

Humor:

"How about a positive LSD story? Wouldn't that be news-worthy, just the once? To base your decision on information rather than scare tactics and superstition and lies? I think it would be news-worthy.

"Today, a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration. That we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively, there is no such thing as death, life is only a dream and we're the imagination of ourselves." "Here's Tom with the weather." -Bill Hicks

"I still say a church steeple with a lightening rod on top shows a lack of confidence." Doug McLeod

"The Bible looks like it started out as a game of Mad Libs." Bill Maher

"I'm completely in favor of the separation of Church and State. My idea is that these two institutions screw us up enough on their own, so both of them together is certain death. " George Carlin

"In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move." Douglas Adams

"Sacred cows make the tastiest hamburger." Abbie Hoffman

"How can I believe in God when just last week I got my tongue caught in the roller of an electric typewriter? " Woody Allen

Transcendence:

"I am perception and knowledge, uttering a Voice by means of Thought. I am the real Voice. I cry out in everyone, and they know that a seed dwells within." Sophia, Trimorphic Protennoia

"To see a world in a grain of sand, and heaven in a wildflower, hold infinity in the palm of your hand, and eternity in an hour." William Blake

"My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind." Albert Einstein

"Joy is the most infallible sign of the presence of God." Teilhard de Chardin

"It is enough for me to contemplate the mystery of conscious life, perpetuating itself through all eternity; to reflect upon the marvelous structure of the Universe; and to try humbly to comprehend even an infinitesimal part of the intelligence manifested in nature." Albert Einstein

"There will come a time when you believe everything is finished. That will be the beginning." Louis L'Amour

"The best and most beautiful things in this world cannot be seen or even heard, but must be felt with the heart." Helen Keller

"Each small task of everyday life is part of the total harmony of the universe." St. Theresa

"When mind soars in pursuit of the things conceived in space, it pursues emptiness. But when the man dives deep within himself, he experiences the fullness of existence." Meher Baba

"Come, come, whoever you are. Worshiper, Wanderer, Lover of Leaving; ours is not a caravan of despair. Though you have broken your vows a thousand times...Come, come again, Come." - Rumi

"The successful Adept…traverses the seven angels… representing the chief operations of the Great Work… And even upon reaching the Philosophers' Stone, he finds it is held in custody by a formidable Dragon." Heinrich Khunrath (1606)

"The bird fights its way out of the egg. The egg is the world. Who would be born must first destroy a world. The bird flies to God. That God's name is Abraxas." Hermann Hesse, Demian

Humanity:

"You have not lived a perfect day, unless you've done something for someone who will never be able to repay you." Ruth Smeltzer

"You think that good is hating what is bad. What is bad is the hating mind itself." Bon Kai

"All men desire peace, but very few desire those things which make for peace." Thomas à Kempis

"Be the change you want to see in the world." Mahatma Gandhi

The man who never alters his opinions is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind. William Blake

Golden Rules:

"Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets." Jesus

"Do not do to others what you would not like others to do to you." Rabbi Hillel

"Bide ye the Wiccan Law ye must, in perfect love and perfect trust. Eight words the Wiccan Rede fulfill: An ye harm none, do what ye will. " Wiccan Rede

"This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness." Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso

"Do unto another what you would have him do unto you, and do not do unto another what you would not have him do unto you. Thou needest this law alone. It is the foundation of all the rest." Confucius

The purpose of Life:

"We are not human beings on a spiritual journey. We are spiritual beings on a human journey." Stephen R. Covey

"He who sees his lord within every creature, deathlessly dwelling amist the mortal: that man sees truly." Bhagavad-Gita

"What affects one thing affects, in some way, all things: All is interwoven into the continuous fabric of being. Its warp and weft are energy, which is the essence of magic." Starhawk

"The great use of life is to spend it on something that will outlast it." William James

"All-conquering and all-knowing am I. Amidst all states of mind, unaffected am I. By abandoning everything, I am liberated by the cessation of desire. Having achieved Realization by myself, who should I point to as my teacher?" Buddha

"You must understand the whole of life, not just one little part of it. That is why you must read, that is why you must look at the skies, that is why you must sing, and dance, and write poems, and suffer, and understand, for all that is life." Krishnamurti

"The life of man is divided between waking, dreaming and dreamless sleep. But transending these three states is superconscious vision called the Fourth." Upanishads

"There are two ways to wash the dishes. One way is to wash them to get them clean. The other way is to wash them in order to wash the dishes." Thich Nhat Hanh

Morality:

"Never esteem anything as of advantage to you that will make you break your word or lose your self-respect." Marcus Aurelius

"What are the 7 deadly sins of Christianity? Gluttony, avarice, sloth, lust... They are urges every man feels at least once a day. How could you set yourself up as the most powerful institution on earth? You first find out what every man feels at least once a day, establish that as a sin, and set yourself up as the only institution capable of pardoning that sin." Anton LaVey

Prayer:

"But who prays for Satan? Who, in eighteen centuries, has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner that needed it most?" Mark Twain

Happiness:

"You can complain because rosebushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses." Lao Tse

"If he sees that by sacrificing a slight happiness he can obtain a greater happiness, then a wise man should sacrifice the lesser happiness with a view to the greater happiness." Buddha

"To live happily is an inward power of the soul." Marcus Aurelius

Churches:

"Going to church no more makes you a christian than sleeping in your garage makes you a car." Garrison Keiler

"Men are doubtful and skeptical about the Church; they suspect and dislike the clergy: they are impatient of theological systems; but for Jesus Christ, as he stand out to view in the sacred pages, as they dimly realize him in their own best selves, as they catch faint traces of him in the lives of his saints, they have no other sentiments than those of respect and affection." - Herbert Hensley Henson

"Every day, people are straying away from the church and going back to God." Lenny Bruce

Anti-Religious:

"Our quaint metaphysical opinions, in an hour of anguish, are like playthings by the bedside of a child deathly sick." Samuel Taylor Coleridge

"Religion is an illusion and it derives its strength from the fact that it falls in with our instinctual desires." Sigmund Freud

"To be conscious that you are ignorant is a great step to knowledge." Benjamin Disraeli

"The Church says the Earth is flat. But I know that it is round. For I have seen the shadow on the Moon. And I have more faith in a shadow than in the Church." Magellan

"So long as man remains free he strives for nothing so incessantly and so painfully as to find something to worship...[W]hat is essential is that all may be together in it. The craving for community worship is the chief misery of...all humanity. For the sake of common worship they've slain each other with the sword." Fyodor Dostoyevsky

"Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived." Isaac Asimov

"Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet." Napoleon Bonaparte

"I have seldom met an intelligent person whose views were not narrowed and distorted by religion." James Buchanan

"Gods are fragile things; they may be killed by a whiff of science or a dose of common sense." Chapman Cohen

"I don't believe in God because I don't believe in Mother Goose." Clarence Darrow

"I have never seen the slightest scientific proof of the religious theories of heaven and hell, of future life for individuals, or of a personal God." Thomas Edison

"In their struggle for the ethical good, teachers of religion must have the stature to give up the doctrine of a personal god." Albert Einstein

"I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own -- a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty. Neither can I believe that the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotisms." Albert Einstein

"The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason." Benjamin Franklin

"Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people." Karl Marx

"We must question the story logic of having an all-knowing all-powerful God, who creates faulty Humans, and then blames them for his own mistakes." Gene Roddenberry

"The biggest cause of trouble in the world today is that the stupid people are so sure about things and the intelligent folks are so full of doubts." Bertrand Russell

"It ain't the parts of the Bible that I can't understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand." Mark Twain