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Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes about Religion

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The religion that is afraid of science dishonors God and commits suicide.

The religion that is afraid of science dishonors God and commits suicide.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Suicide, Religion, Spirituality

Religion is as effectively destroyed by bigotry as by indifference.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Religion, Indifference, Destroyed

Where dwells the religion? Tell me first where dwells electricity, or motion, or thought or gesture. They do not dwell or stay atall. Electricity cannot be made fast, mortared up and ended, like London Monument, or the Tower, so that you shall know where to find it, and keep it fixed, as the English do with their things, forevermore; it is passing, glancing, gesticular; it is a traveller, a newness, a surprise, a secret which perplexes them, and puts them out.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Secret, Religion, Towers

Our housekeeping is mendicant, our arts, our occupations, our marriages, our religion we have not chosen but society has chosen for us.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Art, Religion, Occupation
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2008). “The Spiritual Emerson: Essential Works by Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.20, Penguin

Ethics and religion differ herein; that the one is the system of human duties commencing from man; the other, from God. Religion includes the personality of God; Ethics does not.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Men, Personality, Religion
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2012). “Nature and Other Essays”, p.24, Courier Corporation

The reliance on authority measures the decline of religion, the withdrawal of the soul.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Soul, Religion, Withdrawal
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1993). “Self-reliance, and Other Essays”, p.63, Courier Corporation

Natural religion supplies still all the facts which are disguised under the dogma of popular creeds. The progress of religion is steadily to its identity with morals.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Religion, Progress, Identity
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.2771, Delphi Classics

Religion must always be a crab fruit; it cannot be grafted, and keep its wild beauty.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Wild Beauty, Religion, Fruit
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2004). “A Dream Too Wild: Emerson Meditations for Every Day of the Year”, Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations

Therefore is nature ever the ally of Religion: lends her all her pomp and riches to the religious sentiment.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Religious, Nature, Religion
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2004). “A Dream Too Wild: Emerson Meditations for Every Day of the Year”, Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations

Each religious sect has its own physiognomy. The Methodists have acquired a face; the Quakers, a face; the nuns, a face. An Englishman will pick out a dissenter by his manners.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Religious, Religion, Faces
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1866). “The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Comprising His Essays, Lectures, Poems, and Orations”, p.21

Good churches are not built by bad men; at least, there must be probity and enthusiasm somewhere in the society. These minsters were neither built nor filled by atheists.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Atheist, Men, Religion
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.2204, Delphi Classics

Life is comic or pitiful as soon as the high ends of being fade out of sight, and man becomes near-sighted, and can only attend towhat addresses the senses.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Men, Sight, Religion
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1866). “The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Comprising His Essays, Lectures, Poems, and Orations”, p.194

Europe has always owed to oriental genius its divine impulses. What these holy bards said, all sane men found agreeable and true.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Men, Europe, Religion
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1851). “Essays, lectures and orations”, p.510

The faith that stands on authority is not faith.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Faith, Religion, Authority
'Essays' (1841) 'The Over-Soul'

The fatal trait of the times is the divorce between religion and morality.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Divorce, Religion, Morality

The religion that is afraid of science dishonors God and commits suicide. Every influx of atheism, of skepticism, is thus made useful as a mercury pill assaulting and removing a diseased religion, and making way for truth.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Suicide, Religion, Atheism
Journals of Ralph Waldo Emerson, March 04, 1831.

It is the property of the religious spirit to be the most refining of all influences. No external advantages, no culture of the tastes, no habit of command, no association with the elegant, or even depth of affection, can bestow that delicacy and that grandeur of bearing which belong only to the mind accustomed to celestial conversation,--all else is but gilt and cosmetics, beside this, as expressed in every look and gesture.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Religious, Mind, Religion

The religions are obsolete when the reforms do not proceed from them.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Religion, Reform, Obsolete
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ronald A. Bosco (1982). “The Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.262, Harvard University Press

Draw, if thou canst, the mystic line, Severing rightly his from thine, Which is human, which divine.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Religion, Lines, Divine
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2012). “The Selected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.185, Graphic Arts Books

The first and last lesson of religion is, "The things that are seen, are temporal; the things that are unseen, are eternal." It puts an affront upon nature.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Religion, Atheism, Lessons
"The complete works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Nature addresses and lectures", Vol. 1, by Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ann Arbor, Michigan: University of Michigan Library, 2006.

The religions we call false were once true.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Religion, True Religion
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.2728, Delphi Classics

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