We are wont foolishly to think that the creed which a man professes is more significant than the fact he is.

Fine clothes may disguise, but silly words will disclose a fool

Religious persecution may shield itself under the guise of a mistaken and over-zealous piety.

religions are merely the garments of faith — and very ill cut they often are,

'Faith' is merely fear dressed up as virtue.

There are well-dressed foolish ideas just as there are well-dressed fools

Whatever, over and above good life-conduct, man fancies that he can do to become well-pleasing to God is mere religious delusion and counterfeit worship of God.

The problem is that people think faith is something to be admired. In fact, faith means you believe in something for which you have no evidence.

Hypocrisy is a fashionable vice, and all fashionable vices pass for virtue.

isn't every kind of conformity really a sort of masquerade, the mask at once conspicuous and disguising?

"The pathetic thing that grows out of this condition is called faith: in other words, closing one's eyes upon one's self once for all, to avoid suffering the sight of incurable falsehood. People erect a concept of morality, of virtue, of holiness upon this false view of all things; they ground good conscience upon faulty vision; they argue that no other sort of vision has value any more, once they have made theirs sacrosanct with the names of "God," "salvation" and "eternity." I unearth this theological instinct in all directions: it is the most widespread and the most subterranean form of falsehood to be found on earth."

It is easy to see how superstition, with its false glosses, mocks God, while it tries to please him.

Dearer to me than a host of base truths is the illusion that exalts.

Old and new mafia forces try to pollute popular faith with malignant weeds, passing off a pseudo religion as devout.