Wherever an altar is found, there civilization exists. --Joseph de Maistre
We are on the side of religion as opposed to religions, and we are among those who believe in the wretched inadequacy of sermons and the sublimity of prayer. --Victor Hugo
The idea of the sacred is quite simply one of the most conservative notions in any culture, because it seeks to turn other ideas- uncertainty, progress, change- into crimes. --Salman Rushdie
Talk to me about the truth of religion and I'll listen gladly. Talk to me about the duty of religion and I'll listen submissively. But don't come talking to me about the consolations of religion or I shall suspect that you don't understand. --C. S. Lewis
Religions are the cradles of despotism. --Marquis de Sade
Religion is the dream of the human mind. But even in dreams we do not find ourselves in emptiness or in heaven, but on earth, in the realm of reality; we only see real things in the entrancing splendor of imagination and caprice, instead of in the simple daylight of reality and necessity. --Ludwig Feuerbach