Idolatry Quotes

The art of government is the organisation of idolatry. (George Bernard Shaw)
Culture's essential service to a religion is to destroy intellectual idolatry, the recurrent tendency in religion to replace the object of its worship with its present understanding and forms of approach to that object. View quote
Northrop Frye
And they know neither sect nor idolatry, with the exception that all believe that the source of all power and goodness is in the sky, and they believe very firmly that I, with these ships and people, came from the sky, and in this belief they everywhere received me, after they had overcome their fear. View quote
Christopher Columbus
Superstition, idolatry, and hypocrisy have ample wages, but truth goes a-begging. View quote
Martin Luther
The Great Beast is the only object of idolatry, the only ersatz of God, the only imitation of something which is infinitely far from me and which is I myself. View quote
Simone Weil
The Hebrews took for their idol, not something made of metal or wood, but a race, a nation, something just as earthly. Their religion is essentially inseparable from such idolatry, because of the notion of the "chosen people." View quote
Simone Weil
Every unfulfilled aspiration of humanity in the past; all partial representation of perfect character; all sacrifices, nay, even those of idolatry, point to the fulfillment of what want, the answer to every longing--the type of perfect humanity, the Lord Jesus Christ. View quote
Frederick William Robertson
Idolatry is still a socially cohesive force - its original function. View quote
Julian Jaynes
The Mass is the greatest blasphemy of God, and the highest idolatry upon earth, an abomination the like of which has never been in Christendom since the time of the Apostles. View quote
Martin Luther
All who are content with a humanistic law system...are guilty of idolatry...they are asking us to serve other gods. View quote
Rousas John Rushdoony
True religion is not about possessing the truth. No religion does that. It is rather an invitation into a journey that leads one toward the mystery of God. Idolatry is religion pretending that it has all the answers. (John Shelby Spong)
Early on I saw the repression and idolatry of Stalinism, and when it cracked, I was open to religion again. View quote
Lionel Blue
In my teens, I developed a passionate idolatry for a teacher of English literature. I wanted to do something that he would approve of more, so I thought I should be some sort of a scholar. View quote
Trevor Nunn
Government by kings was first introduced into the world by the Heathens, from whom the children of Israel copied the custom. It was the most prosperous invention the Devil ever set on foot for the promotion of idolatry. View quote
Thomas Paine
It is frequently expressed in all parts of Scripture, that the worship of the stars would be followed by absence of rain, devastation of the land, bad times, diseases, and shortness of life. But abandonment of that worship, and the return to the service of God, would be the cause of the presence of rain, fertility of the ground, good times, health and length of life. Thus Scripture teaches, in order that man should abandon idolatry, the reverse of that which idolatrous priests preached to the people, for, as has been shown by us, the principal object of the Law is to remove this doctrine, and to destroy its traces. View quote
Maimonides
The fundamental imperative about idolatry was that worship was not to be paid to any created thing such as a messenger, a planet, a star, one of the four elements, or to anything produced from them. View quote
Maimonides
The education that you give to the upper classes will not uproot idolatry and prejudice, for it is amongst the masses that the error and prejudice will always maintain their power, and while you do not uproot those prejudices from the hearts of the masses, a handful of educated Hindus will never be able successfully to reform the country. View quote
Keshub Chunder Sen
Wherever public worship has been established and regularly aintained, idolatry has vanished from the face of the earth. There is not now a temple to a heathen god where the word of God is read. View quote
Matthew Simpson
The real sin of idolatry is always committed on behalf of something similar to the State. View quote
Simone Weil
The principal crime of the human race, the highest guilt charged upon the world, the whole procuring cause of judgment, is idolatry. View quote
Tertullian
The Mass is Idolatry. All worshipping, honouring, or service invented by the brain of man in the religion of God, without his own express commandment, is idolatry. The Mass is invented by the brain of man, without any commandment of God; therefore it is idolatry. (John Knox)
What we live in, unfortunately, is a time when we are infected by what I call quantum field theory idolatry. View quote
Robert B. Laughlin
I loved the man and do honor his memory, on this side idolatry, as much as any. View quote
Ben Jonson
Milton's Paradise Lost is admirable; but am I therefore bound to maintain, that there are no flats amongst his elevations, when it is evident he creeps along sometimes for above an hundred lines together? Cannot I admire the height of his invention, and the strength of his expression, without defending his antiquated words, and the perpetual harshness of their sound? It is as much commendation as a man can bear, to own him excellent; all beyond it is idolatry. View quote
John Dryden
To have a faith, therefore, or a trust in any thing, where God hath not promised, is plain idolatry, and a worshipping of thine own imagination instead of God. View quote
William Tyndale