Laurence Sterne Quotes

People who don't believe in God may have their own way of justifying some bad act they have committed.

If you impose morality on people, they will find ways to circumvent their guilt. They will make offerings to temples - or other places of worship - but also continue doing things that make them feel guilty.

Mine was a trained Presbyterian conscience and knew but the one duty - to hunt and harry its slave upon all pretexts and on all occasions, particularly when there was no sense nor reason in it.

If I were not an atheist, I would believe in a God who would choose to save people on the basis of the totality of their lives and not the pattern of their words. I think he would prefer an honest and righteous atheist to a TV preacher whose every word is God, God, God and whose every deed is foul, foul, foul.

No men stand more in fear of God than those who most deny Him.

Deep down in me I knowed it was a lie, and He knowed it. You can't pray a lie - I found that out.

As belief is a passion of the mind, no degree of criminality is attachable to disbelief.

Where there is no religion, hypocrisy becomes good taste.

I think some people who say they're not Christians can behave in a more godly fashion than people who call themselves Christians.

I am not a religious person, but I am spiritual. But I don't believe in things like guilt.

The world is equally shocked at hearing Christianity criticized and seeing it practiced.

It is not the Head but the Heart that is the Seat of Atheism.

Atheists have as much conscience, possibly more, than people with deep religious conviction, and they still have the same problem of how they reconcile themselves to a bad deed in the past. It's a little easier if you've got a god to forgive you.

I was brought up a Catholic, so I take no pleasure in guilt.

Like many people, I have a fascination with lies and the people who tell them. I wouldn't say I've never told a lie, but I don't think I've ever told one without both assuming I would be found out and feeling absolutely rotten about it.

I've always felt like there are certain politicians that wear their religion on their sleeve in a way that you almost feel is disingenuous. I think that your faith has to be first personal. I struggle with those people that preach something and go back behind closed doors and live differently.

I'd stand in line for Confession with old people and little kids, and as the line moved up, I knew when I got into the box that I would lie! Again!

If only I wasn't an atheist, I could get away with anything. You'd just ask for forgiveness and then you'd be forgiven. It sounds much better than having to live with guilt.

So, is Hollywood anti-religion? Not in my opinion. But unlike, say, politicians and preachers who talk faith before going off to speak in tongues to their mistresses, Hollywood just doesn't wear its faith on its sleeve.

Christianity has kept itself going for centuries on hope alone, and has perpetrated all manner of naughtiness in the meantime.

The pride of life hath corrupted the judgment of others, and perverted them in the way of religion.

So far as religion is concerned, it's a damned fake. Religion is all bunk.

The feeling of patriotism --- It is an immoral feeling because, instead of confessing himself a son of God ... or even a free man guided by his own reason, each man under the influence of patriotism confesses himself the son of his fatherland and the slave of his government, and commits actions contrary to his reason and conscience

It is better to be an outspoken atheist than a hypocrite.

That's the biggest part of going to church. You just learn how to hide your bad in front of people.