If I were personally to define religion, I would say that it is a bandage that man has invented to protect a soul made bloody by circumstances. – Theodore Dreiser, 1941

Man is certainly stark mad; he cannot make a worm, and yet he will be making gods by dozens. – Michel de Montaigne, translated

In Lincolns day a Presidents religion was a very private affair. There were no public prayer meetings, no attempts to woo the Religious Right. Few of Lincolns countrymen knew anything at all of his religious beliefs. – David Herbert Donald