God is a complex of ideas formed by the tribe, the nation, and humanity, which awake and organize social feelings and aim to link the individual to society and to bridle the zoological individualism.

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.

The various modes of religion which prevailed in the Roman world were all considered by the people as equally true, by the philosophers equally false, and by the magistrate as equally useful.

God is really only another artist. He invented the giraffe, the elephant, and the cat. He has no real style. He just goes on trying other things.

We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.

Religion is by no means a proper subject of conversation in mixed company.

To doubt everything or to believe everything are two equally convenient solutions; both dispense with the need for thought.

The wrath of the lion is the wisdom of God.

Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.

Among all nations, through the darkest polytheism glimmer some faint sparks of monotheism.

The freedom or immunity from coercion in matters religious, which is the endowment of persons as individuals, is also to be recognized as their right when they act in community. Religious communities are a requirement of the social nature both of man and of religion itself.

I can’t see (or feel) the conflict between love and religion. To me they’re the same thing.

So long as one believes in God, one has the right to do the Good in order to be moral.