Religion
Outline · 2 ›
1.The nature and origin of religion
See also: Man 6c
Michel de Montaigne, That to Philosophise Is to Learne How to DieVol. 32
- p. 22Religion's surest human foundation is contempt of life.read · scan
Blaise Pascal, ThoughtsVol. 48
- p. 24Plan of the work: misery of man without God, happiness with God; nature corrupt, a Redeemer proved by Scripture.read · scan
- p. 137–138True religion must explain man's greatness and wretchedness and their contradictions.read · scan
- p. 138A true religion must teach God, love of Him, our darkness, and remedies; Christianity is examined against other religions.read · scan
- p. 146–147Religion tempers fear with hope, humbling more than reason and exalting more than pride; it alone instructs and corrects men.read · scan
- p. 148Christian doctrine of corrupt nature reveals its mark everywhere; true nature, good, virtue and religion are inseparable.read · scan
- p. 148–149Religion taught what men discover only by greatest knowledge.read · scan
- p. 151A religion that knows man's defects and promises remedies deserves esteem and desire for its truth.read · scan
- p. 162True religion teaches duties, weaknesses, pride and lust, with remedies humility and mortification, and both greatness and misery.read · scan
- p. 180–181The Christian religion consists in two points, equally important to know; sages proclaiming one God were persecuted.read · scan
- p. 181All things tend to establish religion; who knows its principles can explain man's nature and the course of the world.read · scan
- p. 181–182Christianity consists in the mystery of the Redeemer uniting divine and human natures to reconcile men to God.read · scan
- p. 182Christian religion consists in knowing both God and human wretchedness, with Jesus Christ as centre and end of all.read · scan
William Penn, Some Fruits of SolitudeVol. 1
- p. 343Ingenuity, like religion, suffers between pretenders and despisers.read · scan
- p. 348Religion too often made a means instead of an end.read · scan
- p. 356–357Indifference is good in judgment but stark naught in religion.read · scan
William Wordsworth, Essay Supplementary to PrefaceVol. 39
- p. 311Serious persons in middle and declining age resort to poetry as to religion for protection against trivial cares and consolation for life's afflictions.read · scan
Thomas Carlyle, CharacteristicsVol. 25
- p. 331–332Religion was the life-centre of early society; philosophy lay hidden in it until religion split into philosophies.read · scan
- p. 354–355Men are governed by religion and loyalty, not mechanism or self-interest; the Godlike is again recognised.read · scan
Thomas Carlyle, Inaugural Address at EdinburghVol. 25
- p. 379Goethe's pages on education turn on the Christian religion and religious phenomena of the ancient and modern world.read · scan
- p. 385Etymology of heilig links 'holy' with 'healthy'; holiness defined as complete health.read · scan
George Long, The Philosophy of AntoninusVol. 2
- p. 323No religion or ethics is worth anything unless the teacher has lived an apostle's life and been ready for a martyr's death.read · scan
Ralph Waldo Emerson, NatureVol. 5
- p. 226–227Talk of nature is as awkward as talk of religion; false churches accredit the true; literature and science are man's homage.read · scan
Ralph Waldo Emerson, WorshipVol. 5
- p. 281Worship is the source of intellect and health; great ages of achievement have been ages of belief.read · scan
- p. 294The future religion must be intellectual and scientific, a new church founded on moral science, free from emotion and snuffle.read · scan
John Stuart Mill, AutobiographyVol. 25
- p. 44Utilitarian creed served Mill as a religion, a purpose for a life.read · scan
- p. 102–103Creeds, polytheism, Christianity and the Reformation mark the succession of organic and critical periods; Carlyle denounces an age of unbelief.read · scan
- p. 132Comte's religion of Humanity shows moral authority can exist without religious belief.read · scan
- p. 155Her memory is to him a religion.read · scan
Giuseppe Mazzini, Byron and GoetheVol. 32
- p. 386Goethe said religion and politics are a troubled element for art and kept aloof.read · scan
Walter Bagehot, John MiltonVol. 28
- p. 170–171Sensuous natures have deeper, more human religion; ascetics have brooding meditative piety of imaginative grandeur.read · scan
- p. 194–195Success requires satisfying man's religious sense and giving credible conception of things divine and human.read · scan
1a.Religion as fear of invisible powers and the work of legislators
See also: Government 9c
Aeschylus, Prometheus BoundVol. 8
- p. 171–175Fear of death breeds superstition and slavish awe, which Prometheus's gifts dispel.read · scan
Plutarch, ThemistoclesVol. 12
- p. 13–15The priests' claim that the goddess left the city is manipulated to move the people.read · scan
Thomas Hobbes, Of Man, Being the First Part of LeviathanVol. 34
- p. 315–316Superstitious fear of spirits and ghosts is explained as fancy or the knavery of those exploiting fear.read · scan
- p. 316–317Pagan religion and belief in fairies, ghosts and witches arose from confusing dreams with vision; clerics exploit superstition through exorcism and holy water.read · scan
- p. 340–342Religion is fear of invisible power imagined from publicly allowed tales; disallowed it is superstition, if truly such, true religion.read · scan
- p. 375Fear of invisible powers arising from ignorance is the natural seed of religion; other worship is called superstition.read · scan
- p. 376The seed of religion lies in a quality peculiar to man, his curiosity about causes.read · scan
- p. 377Fear of future fortune produces feigned gods.read · scan
- p. 378–379Natural seed of religion: belief in ghosts, ignorance of second causes, devotion to what is feared, and casual omens; ceremonies vary.read · scan
- p. 379–380Religion was cultivated by inventors or by God's commandment to make men obedient; human politics versus divine politics.read · scan
- p. 380Gentile legislators built worship with images, temples and endowments, exploiting ignorance so people would fear the gods.read · scan
- p. 381Gentile religion added superstitious divination to natural conjecture from past experience.read · scan
- p. 382Founders of commonwealths imposed religion as divine dictate to secure obedience: Numa, Peru, Mahomet, with ceremonies to appease the gods.read · scan
- p. 384Formed religion rests on faith in a wise, holy founder; loss of belief in his wisdom, sincerity or love discredits it.read · scan
Alexander Pope, Solitude; On a Certain Lady at Court; Essay on ManVol. 40
- p. 428Superstition born of fear made cruel gods in tyrants' image, with zeal replacing charity and bloody altars.read · scan
Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and BeautifulVol. 24
- p. 136–137Lucretius's picture of religion as a terrible phantom oppressing mankind, yet giving no distinct image.read · scan
Friedrich von Schiller, Letters upon the Aesthetic Education of ManVol. 32
- p. 278A religion born of sensuous man rests on fear of a powerful being rather than veneration of a holy one.read · scan
Percy Bysshe Shelley, The CenciVol. 18
- p. 277Italian Catholic religion pervades life as adoration and penitence, not a moral rule; a villain may be devout, and it is never a check.read · scan
Thomas Carlyle, Sir Walter ScottVol. 25
- p. 394Hero-worship is the primary and ultimate creed of mankind, on which polities, religions and loyalties are built.read · scan
Ralph Waldo Emerson, PoemsVol. 42
- p. 1248Temples and litanies arose from love and terror; one power raised the shrine and moved the worshippers.read · scan
Charles Darwin, The Voyage of the BeagleVol. 29
- p. 219Fuegians seem to have no worship; only faint religious feeling, a muttering over food and wizards with unclear office.read · scan
1b.Religion as the moral sentiment and inward life of love
See also: Law 1b · Charity 1a
Virgil, The AeneidVol. 13
- p. 270Evander explains the annual rites come from gratitude for a god's deliverance, not superstition, blind zeal or ignorance.read · scan
Luke, The Gospel According to LukeVol. 44
- p. 399Kingdom of God is not observed outwardly but is within you.read · scan
Sir Thomas More, UtopiaVol. 36
- p. 194–196Their religion is rigorous and supplies principles that philosophy needs to find true felicity.read · scan
Miguel de Cervantes, The History of Don Quixote of the Mancha, Part IVol. 14
- p. 304–305Innkeeper resolves to return the forgotten papers because, though an innkeeper, he is a Christian.read · scan
- p. 310–312Celestial amity outweighs human friendship; even a Gentile held usque ad aras, so a Christian must more.read · scan
Francis Bacon, Essays, Civil and MoralVol. 3
- p. 31–32Goodness answers to Christian charity; no sect so magnified goodness, despite Machiavelli's charge that it prey to tyrants.read · scan
Sir Thomas Browne, Religio MediciVol. 3
- p. 310Charity is the virtue without which faith is empty; he hates only the Devil and the Multitude.read · scan
Blaise Pascal, ThoughtsVol. 48
- p. 156True religion is annihilating self before the Universal Being and knowing that there is opposition needing a mediator.read · scan
- p. 160–161Every religion is false that does not worship one God as origin and love him as the object of everything.read · scan
- p. 161True religion teaches worship and love of God only, and our inability and its remedy.read · scan
- p. 161True religion commands love of God, knows human lust and weakness, and gives remedies such as prayer; no other does.read · scan
- p. 197–198Two kinds of men in each religion, carnal and spiritual; true Jews and true Christians share one religion of love of God.read · scan
- p. 198Worship and love of God, not descent, make one acceptable; strangers who serve Him are welcomed to the house of prayer.read · scan
Blaise Pascal, LettersVol. 48
- p. 353–355True piety overflows with satisfactions from its beginning; devotion is not bitterness without consolation.read · scan
John Bunyan, The Pilgrim's ProgressVol. 15
- p. 76–77Faithful holds to religion and tender conscience against worldly scorn, preferring God's judgment and salvation.read · scan
- p. 316–318He expresses devotion to Christ: loving to hear his name, gathering his Word for food, kept from iniquities by him.read · scan
William Penn, Some Fruits of SolitudeVol. 1
- p. 341–342Serving master faithfully is serving God, with double wages here and hereafter.read · scan
- p. 358–359Religion is fear of God shown in good works, with faith as root; faith without love is only devils' belief.read · scan
- p. 360Pure religion is charity and piety: visiting the fatherless and widows and keeping unspotted from the world.read · scan
- p. 366Charity and love belong to religion; religion is nothing else but love to God and man.read · scan
William Penn, More Fruits of SolitudeVol. 1
- p. 378The just man fears God and loves his neighbor as himself.read · scan
- p. 397Paul preferred charity to faith and hope, and to outward gifts and church performances, because it abides forever.read · scan
- p. 397No one is a true Christian without charity; even giving all goods or burning the body avails nothing without it.read · scan
Alexander Pope, Solitude; On a Certain Lady at Court; Essay on ManVol. 40
- p. 427Early faith was love; true faith and true policy united, love of God and of man.read · scan
- p. 430Faith and hope lead to unconfined bliss; the man free of sect finds the first and last purpose of the soul.read · scan
Benjamin Franklin, His AutobiographyVol. 1
- p. 76Franklin's Presbyterian upbringing, respect for all sects, essential beliefs in Deity, providence, and doing good to man as true service.read · scan
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Profession of Faith of a Savoyard VicarVol. 34
- p. 304–305Creed's summary: love God and neighbor; religion's real duties are independent of human institutions; tolerate all faiths.read · scan
John Woolman, The Journal of John WoolmanVol. 1
- p. 173–174True religion is an inward life of loving and reverencing God and doing justice, without narrowness about sects.read · scan
- p. 222–223Huss and Thomas a Kempis as sincere followers of Christ promoting inward spiritual religion; true charity toward those differing in belief.read · scan
Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in FranceVol. 24
- p. 283–284English reformers were sincere and pious, unlike Paris reformers; justice and mercy are substantial parts of religion.read · scan
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Tragedy of Faust, Part IVol. 19
- p. 150–152Margaret questions Faust's Christianity; he says each in his own language expresses the human heart's faith.read · scan
William Ellery Channing, On the Elevation of the Laboring ClassesVol. 28
- p. 315Christianity's spirit of brotherhood will bring more equal distribution of toil.read · scan
- p. 334–335Moral and religious principle cannot be excluded from self-elevation; nature should inspire reverence of its Author.read · scan
- p. 341–343True office of religion is to awaken lofty sentiments and unite man to God by rational homage and enlightened love.read · scan
- p. 350–351Belief that elevating all classes brings lasting prosperity is called a part of religion; doubting it approaches crime.read · scan
- p. 361Christianity's true spirit of brotherhood and freedom, applied to society, is the chief ground of hope for the laborer's elevation.read · scan
- p. 365Present civilization stands in hostility to the great ideas of Christianity.read · scan
Leigh Hunt, PoemsVol. 41
- p. 870–871Religious devotion is measured by love of one's fellows rather than by professed love of the Lord.read · scan
Thomas Carlyle, Inaugural Address at EdinburghVol. 25
- p. 380Reverence, honour to those greater than ourselves and distinct from fear, is the soul of all religion.read · scan
- p. 381Goethe's three reverences: for what is above (Pagan), around (equals), beneath (Christian, finding blessing in pain); Christianity is the highest religion.read · scan
Ralph Waldo Emerson, An Address Delivered before the Senior Class in Divinity CollegeVol. 5
- p. 26The moral sentiment is the essence of all religion, a reverence for divine laws.read · scan
- p. 27–28Perceiving the law of laws awakens the religious sentiment, our highest happiness, making the universe safe and habitable.read · scan
- p. 28The moral sentiment underlies society and creates all forms of worship; veneration never dies, and its expressions in the East and Jesus endure.read · scan
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Man the ReformerVol. 5
- p. 57Opening of spiritual senses breeds thirst for divine communications and sacrifice.read · scan
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-RelianceVol. 5
- p. 65Magnanimity and religion let one treat popular indignation as a trifle; yield to devout motions of the soul despite one's metaphysics.read · scan
Ralph Waldo Emerson, FriendshipVol. 5
- p. 114–115Friendship demands a religious treatment; the friend is revered and worshipped, pure nectar of God.read · scan
Ralph Waldo Emerson, CirclesVol. 5
- p. 157–158Youth looks upward with a religious eye and receives instruction.read · scan
Ralph Waldo Emerson, CharacterVol. 5
- p. 196True religion is to recognize and honor the holy sentiment wherever it blooms, keeping sabbath before fine character.read · scan
Ralph Waldo Emerson, NatureVol. 5
- p. 223Nature's sanctity shames our religions; no history, church or state is interpolated on the divine sky.read · scan
Ralph Waldo Emerson, WorshipVol. 5
- p. 275Old creeds have pulverized and people seek religions, yet religion is a public nature inseparable from the soul; God builds his temple in the heart.read · scan
- p. 279Religion is not gone; the moral sense reappears and individualism makes religion personal: souls are not saved in bundles.read · scan
- p. 280–281Decay of forms cannot be cured by theologic creeds; obey moral perceptions, and the spiritual is the real.read · scan
- p. 283Worship is seeing that the nature of things works for truth and right forever.read · scan
John Stuart Mill, AutobiographyVol. 25
- p. 33–34The best unbelievers are more truly religious than believers; religion's worth lies in an ideal of a Perfect Being guiding conscience, not dogma.read · scan
- p. 116Free of superstition yet highly reverential in nature.read · scan
John Greenleaf Whittier, PoemsVol. 42
- p. 1338–1340Faith, prayer and trust in divine love, preferred to controversy of creeds.read · scan
Giuseppe Mazzini, Byron and GoetheVol. 32
- p. 391–392New social poetry will teach the suffering soul to rise towards God through humanity; we must become believers and organizers.read · scan
James Russell Lowell, DemocracyVol. 28
- p. 468–470Socialism at best means the practical application of Christianity to life.read · scan
Frank Aretas Haskell, The Battle of GettysburgVol. 43
- p. 377Gibbon, though belonging to no church, has strong religious feeling that steadies him in battle.read · scan
1c.Religion as poetry and the expression of race and culture
See also: Poetry 2b · Race and Nationality 3a · The Sublime 6b
William Wordsworth, Preface to Poems (1815)Vol. 39
- p. 305–306Pagan anthropomorphism bound poets to definite form, while Hebrew abhorrence of idolatry freed the sublime imagination.read · scan
William Wordsworth, Essay Supplementary to PrefaceVol. 39
- p. 313Readers who read verse for religious purposes overrate authors who voice their truths and reject those with condemned opinions; cold rationalist sects are especially prone.read · scan
- p. 320Some bought Paradise Lost as a religious work rather than for its poetry.read · scan
William Wordsworth, PoemsVol. 41
- p. 635–639He calls himself a worshipper of Nature, long unwearied in that service, with holier love.read · scan
- p. 676–678Pure religion breathing household laws is lost; poet would rather be a pagan than feel nothing.read · scan
Lord Byron, ManfredVol. 18
- p. 442–443The sun as ancient object of worship for Chaldean shepherds, a material god representing the Unknown.read · scan
Percy Bysshe Shelley, A Defence of PoetryVol. 27
- p. 331–332Poets draw men toward apprehension of the invisible world called religion; original religions are allegorical.read · scan
- p. 339Religious institutions were part of Athenian drama but have been banished from the modern stage.read · scan
- p. 339–340Calderon's religious autos link drama and religion but substitute distorted superstition for living passion.read · scan
- p. 342–344Rome's institutions and religion were less poetical than Greece's, as shadow to substance.read · scan
- p. 344–345Ancient religion's circle completed; Christianity founded on Jesus's teachings, which were quickly distorted, though evil is not to be imputed to its poetry.read · scan
- p. 345–346Christianity's poetry and Celtic mythology blended into new manners; the evils of the dark ages came from superstition, and the abuses stayed in popular religion.read · scan
- p. 347Love became a religion with its idols ever present, making earth a paradise.read · scan
- p. 347–348Dante and Milton idealize distorted popular notions of invisible things; Dante's heretical distribution of rewards and punishments.read · scan
- p. 348–349Dante and Milton gave modern mythology systematic form; religions rise and decay as superstitions.read · scan
Thomas Carlyle, CharacteristicsVol. 25
- p. 338Literature is called a branch of religion and shares its character.read · scan
Victor Hugo, Preface to CromwellVol. 39
- p. 338–339In primitive times prayer is man's sole religion, near to God, meditations ecstatic.read · scan
- p. 340–341Religion takes definite shape as prayer is governed by rites and dogma; priest and king share paternity of people.read · scan
- p. 341–342Ancient drama mingles history and religion; actors were priests and performances religious ceremonies.read · scan
- p. 342–343Christianity, a spiritual religion, replaces material paganism, bringing complete dogma and moral; pagan gods are fleshly, eating, sleeping and wounded.read · scan
- p. 343Christianity divides spirit from matter and man from God, unlike paganism; it is a religion of equality, liberty and charity.read · scan
- p. 344–345The starting-point of religion is always the starting-point of poetry; Christianity leads poetry to truth.read · scan
- p. 354–355Christianity's teaching of man's dual nature gives rise to modern poetry.read · scan
Ralph Waldo Emerson, The PoetVol. 5
- p. 167–168Men hover over nature's depths with religious regard; the hunter's worship is sympathetic.read · scan
- p. 177Religions are the ejaculations of imaginative men; religious error comes of making the symbol too solid.read · scan
Ralph Waldo Emerson, CharacterVol. 5
- p. 195–196An allusion to Christ's death as a great defeat that transfigured facts into a universal symbol.read · scan
Ralph Waldo Emerson, NatureVol. 5
- p. 225Natural sights are called the music and pictures of the most ancient religion.read · scan
Ralph Waldo Emerson, WorshipVol. 5
- p. 275–276Religion or worship is the flowering of human culture, hope and fear extended into the invisible; it cannot rise above its votary.read · scan
Ralph Waldo Emerson, English TraitsVol. 5
- p. 338–339Each religious sect acquires its own physiognomy; credence is a main element shaping a people.read · scan
- p. 444–445Poetry's office is to lead to divine sources; religion in poetry raises us.read · scan
Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve, What Is a Classic?Vol. 32
- p. 130Compares the many chambers of the kingdom of the beautiful to the many mansions of the Father's house.read · scan
John Stuart Mill, AutobiographyVol. 25
- p. 111–113Austin cultivated a German religion of poetry and feeling, with little positive dogma.read · scan
Henry David Thoreau, WalkingVol. 28
- p. 407–408Hopes the religion of America's inhabitants may rise as high as its brighter heavens.read · scan
- p. 411–412He enters a swamp as a sacred place, a sanctum sanctorum; the Reformer emerges from the wilderness.read · scan
Matthew Arnold, The Study of PoetryVol. 28
- p. 65Creeds and dogmas dissolve because religion is tied to fact; its strongest part is unconscious poetry.read · scan
- p. 65–66Popular religious evidences and philosophy's reasonings about causation and being are called hollow next to poetry.read · scan
Ernest Renan, The Poetry of the Celtic RacesVol. 32
- p. 137The Bretons have an adorable delicacy in their religious instincts.read · scan
- p. 151–152Legends of Breton and Irish saints are marked by gentleness to animals.read · scan
- p. 152Celtic mythology as naturalism contrasted with Greek and Indian anthropomorphism.read · scan
- p. 162–163In the Welsh Peredur the Grail figures only episodically, without a well-defined religious intention.read · scan
- p. 164Christianity grafted its legend onto the Celtic myth of the magic caldron; the Grail evolved from a pagan talisman to a mystical, priestly relic.read · scan
- p. 180–181Defends Celtic religious legends and mythology against English puritanism and narrow orthodoxy.read · scan
Hippolyte Taine, Introduction to the History of English LiteratureVol. 39
- p. 417Protestant worship, music and architecture traced to a conception of man's duty toward a perfect, judging God.read · scan
- p. 419Type of general conception shapes religion: rich in Aryans, a solitary royal God among Semites.read · scan
- p. 423Christianity and Buddhism arose from despair under oppression, producing charity, humility and brotherhood.read · scan
- p. 428Religion is a poem regarded as true, expressing a conception of nature's primordial causes in symbols and personages.read · scan
- p. 428–430Indian, Greek and Roman religions differ according to each race's aptitude for general ideas.read · scan
- p. 430–432Religion is a metaphysical poem with belief; it arises, declines and reforms with race and circumstance, as in India, the Middle Ages and Reformation.read · scan
1d.Religion as the support of civil society
Plutarch, CaesarVol. 12
- p. 317–318The senate orders that Caesar be worshipped as a divinity.read · scan
Niccolò Machiavelli, The PrinceVol. 36
- p. 38Ecclesiastical princedoms are upheld by venerable religious ordinances, keeping princes secure without defending territory or governing subjects.read · scan
Francis Bacon, Essays, Civil and MoralVol. 3
- p. 9–11Religion is the chief band of society; pagan religion was rites without belief, so it knew no quarrels, but the true God is jealous.read · scan
- p. 83–84Religion and matters of state should be privileged from jest.read · scan
Thomas Dekker, The Shoemaker's HolidayVol. 47
- p. 531–532The king calls marriage a sacred knot tied by God's majesty which no hand should untie.read · scan
Thomas Hobbes, Of Man, Being the First Part of LeviathanVol. 34
- p. 383–384Gentile religion was part of policy; Romans tolerated religions; God's own kingdom makes civil law part of religion.read · scan
- p. 400Fear of invisible powers is each man's religion; oaths and rites add the fear of divine vengeance to promises.read · scan
Blaise Pascal, ThoughtsVol. 48
- p. 125–126Men will risk life for the public good but not for religion.read · scan
The Fundamental Orders of ConnecticutVol. 43
- p. 64–65Officials swear by God's name and promise to execute justice by the rule of God's word.read · scan
William Penn, Some Fruits of SolitudeVol. 1
- p. 337–338Men daily leave relations and religion to follow interest; nations of cross religions unite for interest.read · scan
David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human UnderstandingVol. 37
- p. 404–405Men's belief in divine reward and punishment shapes their conduct whether or not the reasoning is just; undermining it removes a restraint.read · scan
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, A Discourse upon the Origin and the Foundation of the Inequality among MankindVol. 34
- p. 220Religion gave sovereign authority a sacred character, preventing bloody disorders; it saves more blood than fanaticism spills.read · scan
Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of NationsVol. 10
- p. 63In Egypt and Indostan religious principle bound men to their fathers' occupations, changing them being sacrilege.read · scan
Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in FranceVol. 24
- p. 174–176Other nations founded government on religious rites; France showed insolent irreligionread · scan
- p. 215Civilization rests on the spirit of a gentleman and the spirit of religion, upheld by clergy.read · scan
- p. 216A people without religion, honour and manly pride would be barbarians.read · scan
- p. 226Religion is the basis of civil society and source of good; the English prefer any superstition to impiety and are Protestants from zeal.read · scan
- p. 229–230Only religion can empty the people of selfish will and make them regard power as a holy function.read · scan
- p. 338The Areopagus was upheld with care and consecrated with religious awe.read · scan
George Washington, Washington's Farewell AddressVol. 43
- p. 242–243Religion and morality are indispensable supports of political prosperity; morality cannot be maintained without religious principle, as oaths in courts show.read · scan
Alessandro Manzoni, I Promessi Sposi (The Betrothed)Vol. 21
- p. 146Religion as taught to Gertrude sanctified pride and promised earthly felicity, so it was a phantom robbed of its essence.read · scan
Thomas Carlyle, CharacteristicsVol. 25
- p. 327Religion arises as society's keystone: private devotion gains certainty when shared in united worship.read · scan
John Stuart Mill, On LibertyVol. 25
- p. 220He saw belief in received divinities as holding society together and saw Christianity as dissolving it.read · scan
John Ruskin, Sesame and LiliesVol. 28
- p. 125National religion is church ceremony and soporific preaching to keep the mob at work.read · scan
Outline · 2 ›