Truth, in matters of religion, is simply the opinion that has survived.

Religions die when they are proved to be true. Science is the record of dead religions.

Religion does not help me. The faith that others give to what is unseen, I give to what one can touch, and look at. My gods dwell in temples made with hands; and within the circle of actual experience is my creed made perfect and complete: too complete, it may be, for like many or all of those who have placed their heaven in this earth, I have found in it not merely the beauty of heaven, but the horror of hell also.

Christ did not die to save people, but to teach people how to save each other. This is, I have no doubt, a grave heresy, but it is also a fact.

Every single human being should be the fulfilment of a prophecy: for every human being should be the realisation of some ideal, either in the mind of God or in the mind of man.

¿Y dónde dejas el arte? —preguntó ella. —Es una enfermedad. —¿El amor? —Una ilusión. —¿La religión? —El sucedáneo elegante de la fe. —Eres un escéptico. —¡Jamás! El escepticismo es el comienzo de la fe. —¿Qué eres entonces? —Definir es limitar.

His unreal and selfish love would yield to some higher influence, would be transformed into some nobler passion, and the portrait that Basil Hallward had painted of him would be a guide to him through life, would be to him what holiness is to some, and conscience to others, and the fear of God to us all.

Suddenly a dog bayed in the wood, and the dancers stopped, and going up two by two, knelt down, and kissed the man's hands. As they did so, a little smile touched his proud lips, as a bird's wing touches the water and makes it laugh. But there was disdain in it.

The terror of society, which is the basis of morals, the terror of God, which is the secret of religion—these are the two things that govern us.