{"quotes":[{"text":"Spirituality can go hand-in-hand with ruthless single-mindedness when the individual is convinced his cause is just.","author":"Michela Wrong","tags":["human-nature","inquisition","middle-ages","religion"],"id":5496,"author_id":"Michela+Wrong"},{"text":"The judicial methods used by the Communists in our day are the same as those of the Holy Inquisition. To secure the Reign of Terror, the Communists are as brutal as the Christian Church was during a long period of thirteen hundred years, for the same end. Christianity and Communism, - the Judaic Twins - in merciless brutality do not differ from each other. - The history book of the Holy Inquisition became the textbook of the Communist secret police.","author":"Anton U. Brown","tags":["christianity","communism","inquisition"],"id":28423,"author_id":"Anton+U.+Brown"},{"text":"The liberty of man is not safe in the hands of any church. Wherever the Bible and sword are in partnership, man is a slave. All laws for the purpose of making man worship God, are born of the same spirit that kindled the fires of the auto da fe, and lovingly built the dungeons of the Inquisition. All laws defining and punishing blasphemy -- making it a crime to give your honest ideas about the Bible, or to laugh at the ignorance of the ancient Jews, or to enjoy yourself on the Sabbath, or to give your opinion of Jehovah, were passed by impudent bigots, and should be at once repealed by honest men. An infinite God ought to be able to protect himself, without going in partnership with State Legislatures. Certainly he ought not so to act that laws become necessary to keep him from being laughed at. No one thinks of protecting Shakespeare from ridicule, by the threat of fine and imprisonment. It strikes me that God might write a book that would not necessarily excite the laughter of his children. In fact, I think it would be safe to say that a real God could produce a work that would excite the admiration of mankind.","author":"Robert G. Ingersoll","tags":["inquisition","inspiration","jehovah","law","politics","religion","separation-of-church-and-state"],"id":42754,"author_id":"Robert+G.+Ingersoll"},{"text":"This was the end of the Renaissance. Culture, once beloved and fostered by the papacy, opened the way to dangerous freedom. Then - as now - knowledge, culture, intellectual curiosity became suspect, even dangerous to oppressive regimes: knowledge leading to engaging the mind into reasoning, culture into wanting to know more, intellectual curiosity sharpening the appetite for information, fact. Ignorance was considered safe and political oppression went hand in hand with the congregation of the Inquisition.","author":"Gaia Servadio","tags":["culture","curiosity","inquisition","knowledge","religion","renaissance"],"id":56300,"author_id":"Gaia+Servadio"},{"text":"It is the fate of great achievements, born from a way of life that sets truth before security, to be gobbled up by you and excreted in the form of shit. For centuries great, brave, lonely men have been telling you what to do. Time and again you have corrupted, diminished and demolished their teachings; time and again you have been captivated by their weakest points, taken not the great truth, but some trifling error as your guiding principal. This, little man, is what you have done with Christianity, with the doctrine of sovereign people, with socialism, with everything you touch. Why, you ask, do you do this? I don't believe you really want an answer. When you hear the truth you'll cry bloody murder, or commit it. … You had your choice between soaring to superhuman heights with Nietzsche and sinking into subhuman depths with Hitler. You shouted Heil! Heil! And chose the subhuman. You had the choice between Lenin's truly democratic constitution and Stalin's dictatorship. You chose Stalin's dictatorship. You had your choice between Freud's elucidation of the sexual core of your psychic disorders and his theory of cultural adaptation. You dropped the theory of sexuality and chose his theory of cultural adaptation, which left you hanging in mid-air. You had your choice between Jesus and his majestic simplicity and Paul with his celibacy for priests and life-long compulsory marriage for yourself. You chose the celibacy and compulsory marriage and forgot the simplicity of Jesus' mother, who bore her child for love and love alone. You had your choice between Marx's insight into the productivity of your living labor power, which alone creates the value of commodities and the idea of the state. You forgot the living energy of your labor and chose the idea of the state. In the French Revolution, you had your choice between the cruel Robespierre and the great Danton. You chose cruelty and sent greatness and goodness to the guillotine. In Germany you had your choice between Goring and Himmler on the one hand and Liebknecht, Landau, and Muhsam on the other. You made Himmler your police chief and murdered your great friends. You had your choice between Julius Streicher and Walter Rathenau. You murdered Rathenau. You had your choice between Lodge and Wilson. You murdered Wilson. You had your choice between the cruel Inquisition and Galileo's truth. You tortured and humiliated the great Galileo, from whose inventions you are still benefiting, and now, in the twentieth century, you have brought the methods of the Inquisition to a new flowering. … Every one of your acts of smallness and meanness throws light on the boundless wretchedness of the human animal. 'Why so tragic?' you ask. 'Do you feel responsible for all evil?' With remarks like that you condemn yourself. If, little man among millions, you were to shoulder the barest fraction of your responsibility, the world would be a very different place. Your great friends wouldn't perish, struck down by your smallness.","author":"Wilhelm Reich","tags":["celibacy","christianity","corruption","dictatorship","freedom","french-revolution","freud","galileo","hitler","inquisition","jesus","lenin","marriage","marx","nietzsche","responsibility","socialism","stalin","subhuman"],"id":64552,"author_id":"Wilhelm+Reich"},{"text":"Scratch the heresy and you will find the leper. Every battle against heresy wants only this: to keep the leper as he is.","author":"Umberto Eco","tags":["exclusion","heresy","inquisition","power","revolution"],"id":72300,"author_id":"Umberto+Eco"},{"text":"Books won't stay banned. They won't burn. Ideas won't go to jail. In the long run of history, the censor and the inquisitor have always lost. The only sure weapon against bad ideas is better ideas. The source of better ideas is wisdom. The surest path to wisdom is a liberal education.","author":"Alfred Whitney Griswold","tags":["book-burning","books","censorship","education","freedom-of-thought","inquisition","intolerance","liberalism","oppression"],"id":85059,"author_id":"Alfred+Whitney+Griswold"},{"text":"My dear young lady, when you are in love, and jealous, and have been flogged by the Inquisition, there's no knowing what you may do.","author":"Voltaire","tags":["candide","inquisition","jealousy","spanish-inquisition","voltaire","whipping"],"id":88219,"author_id":"Voltaire"},{"text":"In 1231, Pope Gregory ordered the Dominicans to take charge of papal courts and decisions and so prevent mob rule and guarantee that the accused received a fair trial and the right of defence. This was the foundation of the Inquisition, and it was a move to organize, control, and limit violence, disruption, and division. Of course, it often failed and even achieved the opposite of its stated and original purpose, but it's surprising how often in an age of casual and brutal violence a relative moderation and legality was achieved. Civil law was far harsher than canon law, demanding confiscation of a heretic's property and usually death, something the Church had tried to prevent for generations.","author":"Michael Coren","tags":["catholic-church","inquisition","law"],"id":109916,"author_id":"Michael+Coren"},{"text":"As to Science, she has never sought to ally herself to civil power. She has never attempted to throw odium or inflict social ruin on any human being. She has never subjected anyone to mental torment, physical torture, least of all to death, for the purpose of upholding or promoting her ideas. She presents herself unstained by cruelties and crimes. But in the Vatican—we have only to recall the Inquisition—the hands that are now raised in appeals to the 'Most Merciful' are crimsoned. They have been steeped in blood!","author":"John William Draper","tags":["blood","church-and-state","death","dogma","history","inquisition","intolerance","mental-torment","science","separation-of-church-and-state","torment","torture","vatican"],"id":119020,"author_id":"John+William+Draper"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":26,"pages":3,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}