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Religion Quotes by Oscar Wilde

38 Religion quotes by Oscar Wilde

All Religion quotes Oscar Wilde’s page

Religions die when they are proved true, and science records those dead faiths. The quotes suggest that scepticism can be the start of faith, that religion often replaces belief with fashion, and that fear of society or God can drive moral rules. They also note that travel can lift prejudice.

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Missionaries are going to reform the world whether it wants to or not.

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

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“Any religion is an illusion to others”

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Travel ennobles the spirit and does away with our prejudices.

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Skepticism is the beginning of faith.

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Every thing to be true must become a religion.

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Religion is the fashionable substitute for belief.

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The story of mankind began in a garden and ended in revelations.

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The Roman Catholic Church is for saints and sinners alone - for respectable people, the Anglican Church will do.

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People fashion their God after their own understanding. They make their God first and worship him afterwards.

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I delight in men over seventy. They always offer one the devotion of a lifetime.

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Religions die when they are proved to be true. Science is the record of dead religions.

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The spirit of an age may be best expressed in the abstract ideal arts, for the spirit itself is abstract and ideal.

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“You are a sceptic." "Never! Scepticism is the beginning of faith." "What are you?" "To define is to limit.”

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The terror of society, which is the basis of morals, the terror of God, which is the secret of religion-these are the…

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There is nothing in the world like the devotion of a married woman. It is a thing no married man knows anything…

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Truth in art is the unity of a thing with itself: the outward rendered expressive of the inward: the soul made incarnate:…

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“Or was the body really in the soul, as Giordano Bruno thought? The separation of spirit from matter was a mystery, and…

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“In every sphere of life, form is the beginning of things. […] Forms are the food of faith, cried Newman in one…

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“Courage has gone out of our race. Perhaps we never really had it. The terror of society, which is the basis of…

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What of Art? -It is a malady. --Love? -An Illusion. --Religion? -The fashionable substitute for Belief. --You are a sceptic. -Never! Scepticism…

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“Every single human being should be the fulfilment of a prophecy: for every human being should be the realisation of some ideal,…

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“For what is truth? In matters of religion, it is simply the opinion that has survived. In matters of science, it is…

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“One hardly knew at times whether one was reading the spiritual ecstasies of some mediaeval saint or the morbid confessions of a…

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“Religion does not help me. The faith that others give to what is unseen, I give to what one can touch, and…

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“Unconsciously he defines for me the lines of a fresh new school, a school that is to have in it all the…

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The mere mechanical technique of acting can be taught, but the spirit that is to give life to lifeless forms must be…

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“And so, it is not our own life that we live, but the lives of the dead, and the soul that dwells…

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“For the various spiritual forms of the imagination have a natural affinity with certain sensuous forms of art - and to discern…

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“There is no such thing as a good influence, Mr. Gray. All influence is immoral - immoral from the scientific point of…

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I don't want to go to heaven. None of my friends are there.

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The imagination imitates. It is the critical spirit that creates.

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Christ did not die to save people, but to teach people how to save each other. This is, I have no doubt,…

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In a temple everything should be serious except the thing that is being worshiped.

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Religion is like a blind man looking in a black room for a black cat that isn't there, and finding it.

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“The separation of spirit from matter was a mystery and the union of spirit with matter was a mystery also.”

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The things one feels absolutely certain about are never true. That is the fatality of faith, and the lesson of romance.

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It is that deep spiritual affection that is as pure as it is perfect. It is beautiful, it is fine, it is…

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More by Oscar Wilde

How else but through a broken heart may Lord Christ enter in?

The books that the world calls immoral are the books that show the world its own shame.

Bachelors should be heavily taxed. It is not fair that some men should be happier than others

Who, being loved, is poor?

“Basil my dear boy puts everything that is charming in him into his work. The consequence is that he has nothing left for life…

Anybody can be good in the country

I don't at all like knowing what people say of me behind my back. It makes me far too conceited.

“Alles Populäre ist falsch.”

“If these elements of beauty are real, the whole thing simply appeals to our sense of dramatic effect. Suddenly we find that we are…

To love one's self is the beginning of a life-long romance

“Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope.”

Men always want to be a womans first love. Women have a more subtle instinct: What they like is to be a mans last…

Why is it that at a bachelor's establishment the servants invariably drink the champagne.

Moderation is a fatal thing. Enough is as bad as a meal. More than enough is as good as a feast.

Beauty is the only thing that time cannot harm. Philosophies fall away like sand, creeds follow one another, but what is beautiful is a…