Book Quote by George Orwell

“Precisely because the Inquisition provides a blueprint for building and operating the machinery of persecution...the Inquisition was and still is a danger to human…

— Jonathan Kirsch

As you know, the Inquisition is an admirable and wholly Christian invention to make the pope and the monks more powerful and turn a…

— Voltaire

“Of all the tyrannies that affect mankind, tyranny in religion is the worst; every other species of tyranny is limited to the world we…

— Thomas Paine

“The inquisition of public opinion overwhelms in practice the freedom asserted by the laws in theory.”

— Thomas Jefferson

It appears an extraordinary thing to me, that since there is such a diabolical spirit in the depravity of human nature, as persecution for…

— Laurence Sterne

It is of interest to note that most secular humanists continue to belabor the horrors of the Inquisition in order to establish the moral…

— Guenter Lewy

There is a great difference between feeding parties to wild beasts and stirring up their finer feelings in an inquisition. One is the system…

— Mark Twain

“...the workings of the Inquisition did not fundamentally change over its six-hundred-year history. The Inquisition was a machine with interchangeable parts, just as its…

— Jonathan Kirsch

“The first thing for you to understand is that in this place there are no martyrdoms. You have read of the religious persecutions of…

— George Orwell

“We sometimes hear of the cruelties of the Inquisition, of the barbarity of the Irish, of the tyranny of priestcraft; but such cruelties, barbarities,…

— Mary Frances Cusack

“...throughout history the community of readers has been prey to sinister forces - to pedants and priests, legislators and lunatics, deities and demagogues. You…

— James K. Morrow

From Augustine down, theologians have tried to compel people to accept their special interpretation of the Scripture, and the tortures of the inquisition, the…

— Matilda Joslyn Gage