Piney Woods' Place - Quotes - Philosophy/Religion

"The brave and generous have the best lives. They are seldom sorry."
-- Havamal, The Sayings of the Vikings

"I cannot believe in a God who wants to be praised all the time."
-- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900)

"In Christianity neither morality nor religion come into contact with reality at any point."
-- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

"It is better to go skiing and think of God, than go to church and think of sport."
-- Fridtjof Nansen (1861-1930), Norwegian polar explorer, international humanitarian

"Christian fundamentalism is the doctrine that there is an absolutely powerful, infinitely knowledgeable, universe-spanning entity that is deeply and personally concerned about my sex life."
-- Andrew Lias

"How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg."
-- Abraham Lincoln

"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power."
-- Abraham Lincoln

"People who take issue with control of population do not understand that if it is not done in a graceful way, nature will do it in a brutal fashion."
-- H. Kendall

"But a short time elapsed after the death of the great reformer of the Jewish religion, before his principles were departed from by those who professed to be his special servants, and perverted into an engine for enslaving mankind, and aggrandizing their oppressors in Church and State."
-- Thomas Jefferson, letter to S. Kercheval, 1810

"No man with any sense of humor, ever founded a religion."
-- Robert G. Ingersoll

"Whether you think that you can, or that you can't, you are usually right."
-- Henry Ford (1863-1947)

"The more I study religions the more I am convinced that man never worshipped anything but himself."
-- Sir Richard F. Burton

"It is proof of a base and low mind for one to wish to think with the masses or majority, merely because the majority is the majority. Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people."
-- Giordano Bruno (1548-1600 - burned at the stake)

"The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, not to worry about the future, or not to anticipate troubles, but to live the present moment wisely and earnestly."
-- Buddha (568-488 BC)

"If you are not an idealist by the time you are twenty you have no heart, but if you are still an idealist by the time you are thirty, you have no head."
-- Randolph Bourne

"I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of the world, and do not find in our particular superstition (Christianity) one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology."
-- Thomas Jefferson

"It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg."
-- Thomas Jefferson

"I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain."
-- Frank Herbert, Dune

"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, and die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."
-- Robert A. Heinlein, The Notebooks of Lazarus Long

"A myth is a religion in which no one any longer believes."
-- James Feibleman

"The only way to have a friend is to be one."
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

"A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death."
-- Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

"When I told the people of Northern Ireland that I was an atheist, a woman in the audience stood up and said, "Yes, but is it the God of the Catholics or the God of the Protestants in whom you don't believe?""
-- Quentin Crisp

"The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness."
-- Joseph Conrad

"The fact that slaughter is a horrifying spectacle must make us take war more seriously, but not provide an excuse for gradually blunting our swords in the name of humanity. Sooner or later someone will come along with a sharp sword and hack off our arms."
-- Carl von Clausewitz

"Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared."
-- Buddha

"19 April 1993 was the first time since the Spanish Inquisition that people have been burned alive for their religious beliefs."
-- Alec McCol, on the Waco Massacre

"When you were born, you cried and the world rejoiced... Live your life so that when you die, the world cries and you rejoice"
-- Cherokee saying

"I do believe that where there is a choice only between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence."
-- Gandhi

"An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile hoping it will eat him last."
-- Winston Churchill

"Men rarely, if ever, manage to dream up a god superior to themselves. Most gods have the manners and morals of a spoiled child."
-- Robert A. Heinlein, The Notebooks of Lazarus Long

"One man's theology is another man's belly laugh."
-- Robert A. Heinlein, The Notebooks of Lazarus Long

"Life is what happens while you're busy making other plans."
-- John Lennon

"Of all the strange 'crimes' that human beings have legislated out of nothing, 'blasphemy' is the most amazing - with 'obscenity' and 'indecent exposure' fighting it out for second place."
-- Robert A. Heinlein, The Notebooks of Lazarus Long

"The second most preposterous notion is that copulation is inherently sinful."
-- Robert A. Heinlein, The Notebooks of Lazarus Long

"Sin lies only in hurting others unnecessarily. All other 'sins' are invented nonsense. (Hurting yourself isn't sinful - it's just stupid.)"
-- Robert A. Heinlein, The Notebooks of Lazarus Long

"Those who do not learn from the mistakes of history are doomed to repeat them."
-- George Santayana

"Animals can be driven insane by placing too many of them into too small a space. Man is the only animal that voluntarily does this to himself."
-- Robert A. Heinlein, The Notebooks of Lazarus Long

"When the need arises - and it does - you have to be able to shoot your own dog. Farming it out doesn't make it nicer, it just makes it worse."
-- Robert A. Heinlein, The Notebooks of Lazarus Long

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