Religion is the masterpiece of the art of animal training, for it trains people as to how they shall think.

Art was, seriously, the only thing I’d ever wanted to own. It has always been for me a stable nourishment. I use it. It can change the way that I feel in the mornings.

That deep emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God.

Any good piece of material like Shakespeare ought to be open to reinterpretation.

When you hear people demanding that the Ten Commandments be displayed in courtrooms and schoolrooms, always be sure to ask which set. It works every time.

The arts have only ever interested a small minority of people, which acted as a kind of nursery to support artists.

If two men agree on everything, you may be sure that one of them is doing the thinking.

I do not paint a portrait to look like the subject, rather does the person grow to look like his portrait.

Before the throne of the Almighty, man will be judged not by his acts but by his intentions. For God alone reads our hearts.

Nothing is so fatal to religion as indifference.

Real art has been… what’s the word? Kidnapped? No, that’s not it. But, OK, kidnapped by business.

Here’s the thing with me and the religious thing. This is the flat-out truth: I find the religiosity and philosophy in the music. I don’t find it anywhere else.

Art never harms itself by keeping aloof from the social problems of the day: rather, by so doing, it more completely realises for us that which we desire.

Art is making something out of nothing and selling it.

I am a Catholic, not so committed to the church, but to the idea of the Virgin, the female face of God.

It is very nearly impossible… to become an educated person in a country so distrustful of the independent mind.

Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones.

My religion is based on truth and non-violence. Truth is my God. Non-violence is the means of realising Him.

O, you men who think or say that I am malevolent, stubborn or misanthropic, how greatly do you wrong me. You do not know the secret cause which makes me seem that way to you, and I would have ended my life – it was only my art that held me back. Ah, it seemed impossible to leave the world until I had brought forth all that I felt was within me.

My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness.

I’m born with a pencil in my hand. I did lots of sketching.

I tell you the groans of the damned in hell are the deep bass of the universal anthem of praise that shall ascend to the throne of my God for ever and ever.

I am afraid that the schools will prove the very gates of hell, unless they diligently labor in explaining the Holy Scriptures and engraving them in the heart of the youth.

The most powerful idea that’s entered the world in the last few thousand years – the idea of grace – is the reason I would like to be a Christian.

Man is an exception, whatever else he is. If he is not the image of God, then he is a disease of the dust. If it is not true that a divine being fell, then we can only say that one of the animals went entirely off its head.

Seemingly, man has learned to live without God, preoccupied and indifferent toward Him and concerned only about material security and pleasure.

If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.

No matter what your mission is, have some notion in your head. Forget the model, whether it’s government or nonprofit or profit. Ask yourself the more important question: Is my mission improving the world? Are you sure about it? Seek to disconfirm that all the time. And if you can, change your mission.

I experience a period of frightening clarity in those moments when nature is so beautiful. I am no longer sure of myself, and the paintings appear as in a dream.

Thank God, I never was cheerful. I come from the happy stock of the Mathers, who, as you remember, passed sweet mornings reflecting on the goodness of God and the damnation of infants.

To be able to endure odium is the first art to be learned by those who aspire to power.

Frank Lloyd Wright… his things were beautiful but not very functional.

You know, God has some really weird kids, and I find it hard to be in their company most of the time.

All great artists draw from the same resource: the human heart, which tells us that we are all more alike than we are unalike.

One strength of the communist system of the East is that it has some of the character of a religion and inspires the emotions of a religion.

If I were a Roman Catholic, I should turn a heretic, in sheer desperation, because I would rather go to heaven than go to purgatory.

Learn to think continentally.

Art is not merely an imitation of the reality of nature, but in truth a metaphysical supplement to the reality of nature, placed alongside thereof for its conquest.

I have a dogmatic certainty: God is in every person’s life. God is in everyone’s life. Even if the life of a person has been a disaster, even if it is destroyed by vices, drugs or anything else – God is in this person’s life. You can – you must – try to seek God in every human life.

The chief contribution of Protestantism to human thought is its massive proof that God is a bore.

Religious organizations exist to foster the interests of persons subscribing to the same religious faith. Not so of for-profit corporations. Workers who sustain the operations of those corporations commonly are not drawn from one religious community.

Nothing, indeed, is more dangerous to the young artist than any conception of ideal beauty: he is constantly led by it either into weak prettiness or lifeless abstraction: whereas to touch the ideal at all, you must not strip it of vitality.

The whole aspect of cinema and film festivals should be a moment to come together and celebrate art and humanity. It would be a shame if there was such a divide.

The X is an amazing car, but we kind of got carried away with the art and technology. Obviously, you want great art. You want great technology. But we did get a little distracted from our mission, which was to advance the cause of electric vehicles. And it probably delayed us a little bit with the Model 3 as well.

If we must not act save on a certainty, we ought not to act on religion, for it is not certain. But how many things we do on an uncertainty, sea voyages, battles!

Neither of my parents went to church, but they did everything that you needed to do to be Christian. That’s something a Quaker would call an intimation of the divine.

I am Warhol. I am the No. 1 most impactful artist of our generation. I am Shakespeare in the flesh.

Issues are never simple. One thing I’m proud of is that very rarely will you hear me simplify the issues.

I have come to believe that a great teacher is a great artist and that there are as few as there are any other great artists. Teaching might even be the greatest of the arts since the medium is the human mind and spirit.

Religion which requires persecution to sustain, it is of the devil’s propagation.

Religion is the impotence of the human mind to deal with occurrences it cannot understand.

Yes, the Bible should be taught in our schools because it is necessary to understand the Bible if we are to truly understand our own culture and how it came to be. The Bible has influenced every part of western culture from our art, music, and history, to our sense of fairness, charity, and business.

Employers and business leaders need people who can think for themselves – who can take initiative and be the solution to problems.

We write for the same reason that we walk, talk, climb mountains or swim the oceans – because we can. We have some impulse within us that makes us want to explain ourselves to other human beings. That’s why we paint, that’s why we dare to love someone – because we have the impulse to explain who we are.

There is in me an anarchy and frightful disorder. Creating makes me die a thousand deaths, because it means making order, and my entire being rebels against order. But without it I would die, scattered to the winds.

We must show our Christian colors if we are to be true to Jesus Christ.

Anyone who conducts an argument by appealing to authority is not using his intelligence; he is just using his memory.

The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried.

I think that the Bible teaches that homosexuality is a sin, but the Bible also teaches that pride is a sin, jealousy is a sin, and hate is a sin, evil thoughts are a sin. So I don’t think that homosexuality should be chosen as the overwhelming sin that we are doing today.

A religion that takes no account of practical affairs and does not help to solve them is no religion.

Science is properly more scrupulous than dogma. Dogma gives a charter to mistake, but the very breath of science is a contest with mistake, and must keep the conscience alive.