Alain de Botton Quotes

Religious ideas have the fate of melodies, which, once set afloat in the world, are taken up by all sorts of instruments, some of them woefully coarse, feeble, or out of tune, until people are in danger of crying out that the melody itself is detestable.

Religion is one of the phases of thought through which the world is passing.

I've spent the last 50 years or so steeping myself in the world's religions, and I've done my homework. I've gone to each of the world's eight great religions and sought out the most profound scholars I could find, and I've apprenticed myself to them and actually practiced each faith.

I'm in favour of religion as a tamer of arrogance. For a Greek Orthodox, the idea of God as creator outside the human is not God in God's terms. My God isn't the God of George Bush.

Whether one believes or not, religion is as real a force in the life of the world as economics or politics, and it demands fair-minded attention. Even if you think the entire religious enterprise is at best misguided and at worst counterproductive, it remains vital, inspiring great good and, sometimes, great evil.

I'll watch things on OWN like 'Belief,' which is about faith.

I'm very interested in religion and different religions, and I know quite a lot about it. I love gospel music, and I love going to churches, but the one drawback is that I don't actually believe in God. And it is quite a handicap, you know.

Of publishing a book on religion, my dear sir, I never had an idea. I should as soon think of writing for the reformation of Bedlam, as of the world of religious sects. Of these there must be, at least, ten thousand, every individual of every one of which believes all wrong but his own.

I've always paid attention to religion because I grew up in a religious background, but I've never felt a part of any of them. I think there's something to be drawn from most of them - other than goat sacrificing.

He [God] just seems so man-made to me. There are so many theories, and not everyone can be right. It's human nature to need a religious crutch, and I don't begrudge anyone that. I just don't need one.

Our English language really says if you're not a theist, the only alternative is to be an atheist. What I'm trying to do is develop a language that will enable us to talk about God beyond the, what I think, are sterile categories of theism and atheism.

Of course God is endlessly multi-dimensional so every religion that exists on earth represents some face, some side of God.

I grew up Baptist and still go to church. I myself have explored other religions, because I want to know what it is that makes other people tick. I find we're all talking about the same thing, really - it's all God.

I grew up Jewish. I am Jewish. I went to an Episcopal high school. I went to a Baptist college. I've taken every comparative-religion course that was available. God? I have no idea.

I like to read about different religions - Judaism, Islam, Christianity, Hinduism and Buddhism.

I am sensitive to the value of faith and religion and spirituality in people's lives because I'm a journalist.

There are many levels of Christianity. There are many notions about God. To believe that God is a person is just one of the notions of God that you can find in Christianity. So, we should not say that there is one Christianity. There are many Christianities.

What we need in Europe is to push back against the idea that religion is so farfetched that it's not worth talking about.

I think that probably all religions sound bizarre to the people who are not the practitioners of them.

I'm interested in the origins of the religious experience, how the history of religion has evolved over the last umpteen thousand years, and where religiosity is going in the future. I think that's a topic I've been chewing on for a few years; I would love to eventually work on and produce a book out of it.

Given that religious faith is an intrinsic element of human experience, it is best to approach and engage the subject with a sense of history and a critical sensibility.

I've always been interested in what passes for what we call religion, what other cultures call their spiritual life.

I grew up Catholic, so the more non-denominational Christian experience was a new experience for me.

I believe God is a poet; every religion in our history was made of poems and songs, and not a few of them had books attached.

I don't like it when religions take it to the point where they discredit all other religions, because how could one sector of people have figured it out and know that that's it? But I do think that there's so much beauty in a lot of the stories or scriptures.