The Times Great Quotations. Группа авторов

Bacon, English philosopher, statesman and essayist (1561–1626)

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      So long as man remains free he strives for nothing so incessantly and so painfully as to find someone to worship.

      The Brothers Karamazov (1880)

      Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Russian writer (1821–1881)

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      If the Devil doesn’t exist, but man has created him, he has created him in his own likeness.

      The Brothers Karamazov (1880)

      Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Russian writer (1821–1881)

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      There is only one religion, though there are a hundred versions of it.

      Plays Pleasant and Unpleasant (1898)

      George Bernard Shaw, Irish playwright (1856–1950)

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      Religions are kept alive by heresies, which are really sudden explosions of faith. Dead religions do not produce them.

      Thoughts in a Dry Season (1978)

      Gerald Brenan, British writer (1894–1987)

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      If God is your emotional role model, very few human relationships will match up to it.

      Oranges are Not the Only Fruit (1985)

      Jeanette Winterson, English writer (1959–)

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      Religion, which should most distinguish us from the beasts, and ought most particularly elevate us, as rational creatures, above brutes, is that wherein men often appear most irrational, and more senseless than beasts.

      An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689)

      John Locke, English philosopher (1632–1704)

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      God and the doctor we alike adore

      But only when in danger, not before;

      The danger o’er, both are alike requited,

      God is forgotten and the doctor slighted.

      Epigrams (1677)

      John Owen, Welsh epigrammist (1564–1622)

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      Human beings are perhaps never more frightening than when they are convinced beyond doubt that they are right.

      The Lost World of the Kalahari (1958)

      Laurens van der Post, South African writer and political adviser (1906–1996)

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      I see it as an elderly lady, who mutters away to herself in a corner, ignored most of the time.

      [In Reader’s Digest, 1991, about the Church of England]

      Lord Carey of Clifton, Archbishop of Canterbury (1935–)

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      To give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.

       The Bible

       Luke 1:79

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      Man is quite insane. He wouldn’t know how to create a maggot, and he creates gods by the dozens.

      Essais (1580)

      Michel de Montaigne, French philosopher (1533–1592)

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      He who gains an indulgence is not, strictly speaking, absolved from the debt of punishment, but is given the means whereby he may pay it.

      Summa Theologica (1485)

      Saint Thomas Aquinas, Italian Catholic priest (1225–1274)

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      If the sun and moon should doubt, they’d immediately go out.

      Auguries of Innocence (1863)

      William Blake, English poet (1757–1827)

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      Both read the Bible day and night,

      But thou read’st black where I read white.

      The Everlasting Gospel (c. 1818)

      William Blake, English poet (1757–1827)

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      It is a mistake to suppose that God is only, or even chiefly, concerned with religion.

      William Temple, British theologian and Archbishop of Canterbury (1881–1944)

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      I am ready to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter.

      Sir Winston Churchill, prime minister of the UK, historian and Nobel Prize winner (1874–1965)

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      Even God is deprived of this one thing only: the power to undo what has been done.

      Agathon, Greek poet (448–400 BC)

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      God does not play dice.

      The Born-Einstein Letters (1926)

      Albert Einstein, German theoretical physicist (1879–1955)

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      I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it.

      The Color Purple (1985)

      Alice Walker, American writer and activist (1944–)

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      In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

       The Bible

       Genesis 1:2

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      God seems to have left the receiver off the hook, and time is running out.

      The Ghost in the Machine (1967)

      Arthur Koestler, Hungarian-British writer (1905–1983)

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      My dear child, you must believe in God in spite of what the clergy tell you.

      Benjamin Jowett, English educator and theologian (1817–1893)

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      I cannot forgive Descartes; in all his philosophy he did his best to dispense with God. But he could not avoid making Him set the world in motion with a flick of His finger; after that he had no more use for God.

      Pensées (1670)

      Blaise Pascal, French mathematician and physicist (1623–1662)

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      In all important questions, man has learned to cope without recourse to God as a working hypothesis.

      [Letter to a friend, 1944]

      Dietrich Bonhoeffer, German pastor and theologian (1906–1945)

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