QuoteProject
I have no religion,’ says Borneau, ‘but I respect the religion of others. Religion is sacred.’ Why this privilege, this immunity?... A believer creates God in his own image; if he is ugly, his God will be morally ugly. Why should moral ugliness be respectable?
Jules Renard
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

This quote reflects on the nature of religious belief and morality, suggesting that people's perceptions of God often mirror their own traits.

Jules Renard's quote explores the relationship between individual morality and the conception of God within various religions. He articulates a critical view, questioning why qualities associated with moral ugliness should be honored if they stem from a flawed understanding of divinity, emphasizing the subjectivity inherent in religious beliefs and highlighting the need for respect towards different faiths while also demanding accountability for perceived moral shortcomings.

Themes

ReligionMoralityBeliefGodRespectUgliness

In practice

Example use cases

This quote can be used in a discussion about interfaith dialogue to emphasize the importance of respect for differing beliefs.

More from Jules Renard

Writing is a way of talking without being interrupted.
Jules RenardRead
If one were to build the house of happiness, the largest space would be the waiting room.
Jules RenardRead
When I think of all the books still left for me to read, I am certain of further happiness.
Jules RenardRead
It doesn't pay to say too much when you are mad enough to choke. For the word that stings the deepest is the word that is never spoke, Let the other fellow wrangle till the storm has blown away, then he'll do a heap of thinking about the things you didn't say.
Jules RenardRead
Literature is an occupation in which you have to keep proving your talent to people who have none
Jules RenardRead
If I had my life to live over again, I would ask that not a thing be changed, but that my eyes be opened wider.
Jules RenardRead

Similar quotes

Everyone, including the Athenians [...] are right to accept advice from anyone, since it is incumbent on everyone to share in that sort of excellence, or else there can be no city at all.
ProtagorasRead
It [the scarlet letter] had the effect of a spell, taking her out of the ordinary relations with humanity, and enclosing her in a sphere by herself.
Nathaniel HawthorneRead
I never considered myself a lucky person. I'm the most extraordinary pessimist. I truly am.
Christopher NolanRead
(What makes his world so hard to see clearly is not its strangeness but its usualness).Familiarity can blind you too.
Robert M. PirsigRead
Our instinct may be to see the impossibility of tracking everything down as frustrating, dispiriting, perhaps even appalling, but it can just as well be viewed as almost unbearably exciting. We live on a planet that has a more or less infinite capacity to surprise. What reasoning person could possibly want it any other way?
Bill BrysonRead
National character is only another name for the particular form which the littleness, perversity and baseness of mankind take in every country. Every nation mocks at other nations, and all are right.
Arthur SchopenhauerRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.