“All people have religions. It's like we have religion receptors built into our brain cells, or something, and we'll latch onto anything that'll fill that niche for us.”

“I think the deeper we go, the less likelihood we'll have of being recognised as something unwanted. It's like the human body - the greatest density of pain receptors lies in the skin.”

“Deep in ourselves resides the religious impulse. Out of the passions of our clay it rises.We have religion when we stop deluding ourselves that we are self-sufficient, self-sustaining or self-derived.We have religion when we hold some hope beyond the present, some self-respect beyond our failures.We have religion when our hearts are capable of leaping up at beauty,when our nerves are edged by some dream in our heart.We have religion when we have an abiding gratitude for all that we have received.We have religion when we look upon people with all their failings and still find in them good; when we look beyond people to the grandeur in nature and to the purpose in our own heart.We have religion when we have done all that we can, and then in confidence entrust ourselves to the life that islarger than ourselves.”

“We have lied to ourselves. We have not built this box for the good of our brothers. We built it for its own sake. It is above all our brothers to us, and its truth above their truth.”

“All our religion is but a false religion, and all our virtues are mere illusions and we ourselves are only hypocrites in the sight of God, if we have not that universal charity for everyone--for the good, and for the bad, for the poor and for the rich, and for all those who do us harm as much as those who do us good.”

“Religion is, in reality, living. Our religion is not what we profess, or what we say, or what we proclaim; our religion is what we do, what we desire, what we seek, what we dream about, what we fantasize, what we think - all these things - twenty-four hours a day. One's religion, then, is ones life, not merely the ideal life but the life as it is actually lived. Religion is not prayer, it is not a church, it is not theistic, it is not atheistic, it has little to do with what white people call "religion." It is our every act. If we tromp on a bug, that is our religion; if we experiment on living animals, that is our religion; if we cheat at cards, that is our religion; if we dream of being famous, that is our religion; if we gossip maliciously, that is our religion; if we are rude and aggressive, that is our religion. All that we do, and are, is our religion.”