A doctrine insulates the devout not only against the realities around them but also against their own selves. The fanatical believer is not conscious of his envy, malice, pettiness and dishonesty. There is a wall of words between his consciousness and his real self.

The weakness of a soul is proportionate to the number of truths that must be kept from it.

We lie loudest when we lie to ourselves.

To most of us nothing is so invisible as an unpleasant truth. Though it is held before our eyes, pushed under our noses, rammed down our throats - we know it n…

We suffer primarily not from our vices or our weaknesses, but from our illusions.

It is difficult to imagine a set of beliefs more suggestive of mental illness than those that lie at the heart of many of our religious traditions.[2]

For men have dulled their eyes with sin, And dimmed the light of heaven with doubt, And built their temple-walls to shut thee in, And framed their iron creeds …