The dissolution of the nation destroys the national religion, and dethrones the national deity.
— William Robertson Smith
Even the highest forms of sacrificial worship present much that is repulsive to modern ideas, and in particular it requires an effort to reconcile our imagination to the bloody ritual which is prominent in almost every religion which has a strong sense of sin.
Our Father and Our God, unto thee, O Lord we lift our souls.
— William Pennington
Things are coming to a pretty pass when religion is allowed to invade private life.
— William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne
True religion... is giving and finding one's happiness by bringing happiness into the lives of others.
— William J. H. Boetcker
There is a heroism in crime as well as in virtue. Vice and infamy have their altars and their religion.
— William Hazlitt
Primitive societies without religion have never been found.
— William Dean Howells
What is a wife and what is a harlot? What is a church and what is a theatre? are they two and not one? Can they exist separate? Are not religion and politics the same thing? Brotherhood is religion. O demonstrations of reason dividing families in cruelty and pride!
— William Blake
The imperative of protecting religious freedom was not just a nod in the direction of piety. It reflects the Framers' belief that religion was indispensable to sustaining our free system of government.
— William Barr
The first act of religion, therefore, concerns those things which are communicated to us from God. The other concerns those things which we yield to God.
— William Ames
Themes of redemption, temptation, and faith don't necessarily apply directly to religion. A lot of people find faith in their lives outside of God and still deal with notions of temptation and redemption that aren't religious.
— Will Poulter
Religion has given me a new drive in life. Life feels a lot easier than it ever did before.
— Wesley Sneijder
Difference of religion breeds more quarrels than difference of politics.
— Wendell Phillips
How can we educators claim credit for understanding, let alone teaching, the 'global mind' without a single course on the impact of religion on every day life?
— Warren Bennis
Every sect is a moral check on its neighbour. Competition is as wholesome in religion as in commerce.
— Walter Savage Landor
When Hegel later became a man of influence' he insisted that the Jews should be granted equal rights because civic rights belong to man because he is a man and not on account of his ethnic origins or his religion.
— Walter Kaufmann
If someone doesn't have a reason to not like you in America, they talk politics or religion. Then they get to hate you and we get to be enemies.
— Wale
Religion did not exist for the saving of souls but for the preservation and welfare of society, and in all that was necessary to this end every man had to take his part, or break with the domestic and political community to which he belonged.
But, strictly speaking, this mythology was no essential part of ancient religion, for it had no sacred sanction and no binding force on the worshippers.
We are a religious people whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being.
— William O. Douglas
If we have to give up either religion or education, we should give up education.
— William Jennings Bryan
To become a popular religion, it is only necessary for a superstition to enslave a philosophy.
— William Inge
Religion is the most important of all things: the great point of discrimination that divides the man from the brute. It is our special prerogative that we can converse with that which we cannot see and believe in that the existence of which is reported to us by none of our senses.
— William Godwin
America's state religion, is patriotism, a phenomenon which has convinced many of the citizenry that 'treason' is morally worse than murder or rape.
— William Blum
The glory of Christianity is to conquer by forgiveness.
Freedom of religion requires not only freeing religion from undue government regulation and interference. It also requires freeing religion from discrimination and from vile acts of hatred and persecution.
I'm a student of world religion, so to me, it's hugely important to have knowledge and to understand what people are doing.
— Will Smith
What is normally called religion is what I would tend to call music - participating in music, listening to music, making records and singing.
— Will Oldham
I wasn't raised a Catholic, but Yolanthe was, and I wanted to get more involved in her religion.
My purpose is to help people look at themselves and begin to shift their concepts. Remember, we are not our country, our race, or religion. We are eternal spirits. Seeing ourselves as spiritual beings without label is a way to transform the world and reach a sacred place for all of humanity.
— Wayne Dyer
There is a vulgar incredulity, which in historical matters, as well as in those of religion, finds it easier to doubt than to examine.
— Walter Scott
No account of the Renaissance can be complete without some notice of the attempt made by certain Italian scholars of the fifteenth century to reconcile Christianity with the religion of ancient Greece.
— Walter Pater
When state and religion are one, religion becomes a means for the powerful to remain in power.
— Walter Jon Williams
There's no religion in this country that is more misunderstood, mis-categorized, and misidentified than Islam.
— W. Kamau Bell
In better times the religion of the tribe or state has nothing in common with the private and foreign superstitions or magical rites that savage terror may dictate to the individual.
In all the antique religions, mythology takes the place of dogma; that is, the sacred lore of priests and people... and these stories afford the only explanation that is offered of the precepts of religion and the prescribed rules of ritual.
After that his Majesty was beheaded, the Parliament for some years effected nothing either for the publick peace or tranquillity of the nation, or settling religion as they had formerly promised.
— William Lilly
A dislike of death is no proof of the want of religion. The instincts of nature shrink from it, for no creature can like its own dissolution. But though death is not desired, the result of it may be, for dying to the Christian is the way to life eternal.
— William Jay
We have enslaved the rest of the animal creation, and have treated our distant cousins in fur and feathers so badly that beyond doubt, if they were able to formulate a religion, they would depict the Devil in human form.
While my mother lived, I always felt to a certain degree as if I had somebody who was my superior and who exercised a mysterious protection over me. I belonged to something - I hung to something - there is nothing that has so much reverence and religion in it as affection to parents.
Prisons are built with stones of Law. Brothels with the bricks of religion.
We are a pluralistic Nation composed of very distinct groups, each bound together by ethnicity, race, or religion - each group proud of its identity and committed to its faith and traditions. Yet despite these differences, we can be bound together into a broader community.
Religion fails if it cannot speak to men as they are.
— William Barclay
I don't necessarily believe in organized religion.
The knife of historical relativism... which has cut to pieces all metaphysics and religion must also bring about healing.
— Wilhelm Dilthey
Then my extended family, there are preachers and evangelists, former priests. So I have quite a bit of history with Church, religion and spirituality.
— Wes Bentley
Science attempts to analyze how things and people and animals behave; it has no concern whether this behavior is good or bad, is purposeful or not. But religion is precisely the quest for such answers: whether an act is right or wrong, good or bad, and why.
— Warren Weaver
Even the weakest disputant is made so conceited by what he calls religion, as to think himself wiser than the wisest who think differently from him.
Religious tolerance is something we should all practice; however, there have been more persecution and atrocities committed in the name of religion and religious freedom than anything else.
— Walter Koenig
Intolerance respecting other people's religion is toleration itself in comparison with intolerance respecting other people's art.
— Wallace Stevens
