If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain.

-Bible (NewTestament)
James1:26.

Man is by his constitution a religious animal; atheism is against not only our reason, but our instincts.

-Burke, Edmund
  Reflections on the Revolution in France.

The three most important things a man has are, briefly, his private parts, his money, and his religious opinions.

-Butler, Samuel
Collected in Further Extracts from the Notebooks (1934).

John Grubby, who was short and stout And troubled with religious doubt, Refused about the age of three To sit upon the curate's knee.

-Chesterton, G(ilbert) K(eith)
  'The New Freethinker'.

A belief is made religious, not so much by its content, as rather by the way it is held.

-Cupitt, Rev Don
  The Sea of Faith.

Wearea religiouspeoplewhose institutionspresuppose a Supreme Being.

-Douglas, (George) Norman
  Ruling to allow the release of public school students for religious instruction, 28  Apr.

All known religious beliefs, whether simple or complex, present one common characteristic: they presuppose a classification of all things, real and ideal, of which men think, into two classes or opposed groups, generally designated†profane and sacred.

-Durkheim, EŁ  mile
  The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life (translated by Joseph Ward Swain,1965).

I hope I will be religious again but as for reganing my charecter I despare for it.

-Fleming, Marjory
  'Journal 2' in F Sidgwick (ed)  The Complete Marjory Fleming (1934).

The more the fruits of knowledge become accessible to men, the more widespread is the decline of religious belief.

-Freud, Sigmund
  The Future of an Illusion.

It was here that I suspended my religious inquiries (aged 17).

-Gibbon, Edward
Memoirs of My Life (published1796), ch.4.

   Totakeanalmost religiousview, thisearthisnothing very special.There have probably been millions of earths just like ours each producing a particular intelligent species. That isnottosay thattheyall developed well, thattheyall achieved some sort of perfection. And if the planner made lots of them and some of them chose to destroy themselves,thenwe canonlysupposethattheplanner is a hard and practical man.

-Hoyle, Sir Fred
  In the Daily Mail.

The sense of wonder that is the sixth sense. And it is the natural religious sense.

-Lawrence, D(avid) H(erbert)
'Hymns in a Man's Life'. Collected in Pheonix II: Uncollected, Unpublished and Other ProseWorks (1968).

But let my due feet never fail To walk the studious cloister's pale, And love the high embowe'  d roof, With antic pillars massy proof, And storied windows richly dight Casting a dim religious light.

-Milton,John
c.1631 Il Penseroso, l.155^60.

With all allowance made for Marx's erudition and his historic impact upon the social sciences, especially sociology, it is as an art united with prophecy, virtually religious prophecy, that Marxism survives.

-Nisbet, Robert
  Sociology as an  Art Form, ch.5.

It is only in science, I find, that we can get outside ourselves. It's realistic, and to a great degree verifiable, and it has this tremendous stage on which it plays. I have the same feelingöto a certain degreeöabout some religious expressions†but only to a certain degree. For me, the proper study of mankind is science, which also means that the proper study of mankind is man.

-Rabi, Isidor Isaac
Quoted inJeremy Bernstein Experiencing Science (1978).

I am not interested in relationships of color or form or anything else† I am interested only in expressing the basic human emotionsötragedy, ecstasy, doom, and so onöand the fact that lots of people breakdown and cry when confronted with my pictures shows that I communicate with those basic human emotions. The people who weep before my pictures are having the same religious experience I had when I painted them. And if you, as you say, are moved only by their color relationships, then you miss the point!

-Rothko, Mark originally Marcus Rothkovitch
Quoted in R Rosenblum Modern Painting and the Northern RomanticTradition (1975).

Religious law is like the grammar of language. Any language isgoverned by such rules; otherwise it ceases to be a language. But within them, you can say many different sentences and write many different books.

-Sacks,Jonathan
  In The Independent, 30 Jun.

People can say what they like about the decay of Christianity; the religious system that produced green Chartreuse can never really die.

-Saki pseudonym of  Hector Hugh Munro
  Reginald,'Reginald on Christmas Presents'.

Be a good manöbe virtuousöbe religiousöbe a good man. Nothing else will give you any comfort when you come to lie here.

-Scott, Sir Walter
  Last words, addressed to Lockhart, quoted inJohn G Lockhart Memoirs of the Life of SirWalter Scott, Bart. (1837^8). Scott concluded by saying 'God bless you all.'

The expedition had now performed its functions. I saw that old father Nile without any doubt rises in the Victoria Nyanza, and as I had foretold, that lake is the great source of the holy river which cradled the first expounder of our religious belief.

-Speke,John Hanning
  Journal of the Discovery of the Source of the Nile.