« All Religion Quotes · H. L. Mencken's Page
Religion Quotes by H. L. Mencken
- Religion deserves no more respect than a pile of garbage.
- People say we need religion when what they really mean is we need police.
- Men become civilized, not in proportion to their willingness to believe, but in their readiness to doubt.
- I believe that religion, generally speaking, has been a curse to mankind - that its modest and greatly overestimated services on the ethical side have…
- All great religions, in order to escape absurdity, have to admit a dilution of agnosticism. It is only the savage, whether of the African bush…
- The most curious social convention of the great age in which we live is the one to the effect that religious opinions should be respected.
- A Puritan is someone who is desperately afraid that, somewhere, someone might be having a good time.
- Religion is "so absurd that it comes close to imbecility."
- There is, it appears, a conspiracy of scientists afoot. Their purpose is to break down religion, propagate immorality, and so reduce mankind to the level…
- There is only one justification for having sinned, and that is to be glad of it.
- There is something even more valuable to civilization than wisdom, and that is character.
- The effort to reconcile science and religion is almost always made, not by theologians, but by scientists unable to shake off altogether the piety absorbed…
- The time must come inevitably when mankind shall surmount the imbecility of religion, as it has surmounted the imbecility of religion's ally, magic. It is…
- It [the State] has taken on a vast mass of new duties and responsibilities; it has spread out its powers until they penetrate to every…
- The acting that one sees upon the stage does not show how human beings comport themselves in crises, but how actors think they ought to.…
- Religion, after all, is nothing but an hypothesis framed to account for what is evidentially unaccounted for.
- All the political seers and sorcerers seem to be agreed that the coming Presidential campaign will be full of bitterness, and that most of it…
- 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…
- Puritanism. The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.
- It is now quite lawful for a Catholic woman to avoid pregnancy by a resort to mathematics, though she is still forbidden to resort to…
- An idealist is one who, on noticing that roses smell better than a cabbage, concludes that it will also make better soup.
- Democracy is also a form of worship. It is the worship of Jackals by Jackasses.
- A Sunday school is a prison in which children do penance for the evil conscience of their parents.
- A church is a place in which gentlemen who have never been to heaven brag about it to persons who will never get there.
- Communism, like any other revealed religion, is largely made up of prophecies.
More Ways to Read Religion Quotes by H. L. Mencken
More Religion Quotes
- A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler… — Aristotle
- Men create gods after their own image, not only with regard to their form but with regard to their mode of life. — Aristotle
- Religious people often prefer to be right rather than compassionate. Often, they don't want to give up their egotism. They want their… — Karen Armstrong
- Islam is a religion of success. Unlike Christianity, which has as its main image, in the west at least, a man dying… — Karen Armstrong
- Compassion is not a popular virtue. Very often when I talk to religious people, and mention how important it is that compassion… — Karen Armstrong
- I am not interested in the afterlife. Religion is supposed to be about losing your ego, not preserving it eternally in optimum… — Karen Armstrong
- There are some forms of religion that are bad, just as there's bad cooking or bad art or bad sex, you have… — Karen Armstrong
- Every fundamentalist movement I've studied in Judaism, Christianity and Islam is convinced at some gut, visceral level that secular liberal society wants… — Karen Armstrong
- Zionism was originally a rebellion against religious Judaism and the PLO Charter was essentially secularist. But because the conflict was allowed to… — Karen Armstrong
- Creationists make it sound as though a 'theory' is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night. — Isaac Asimov
- To surrender to ignorance and call it God has always been premature, and it remains premature today. — Isaac Asimov
- Preach the Gospel at all times and when necessary use words. — Francis of Assisi