Religion is the most dangerous thing in the world

'Exactly. Religion is the most dangerous thing in the world. It is not little girls in their communion frocks and silly holy pictures and the Children of Mary. It is,' he said, 'high explosive, dynamite, the,' he smiled at the conceit, 'splitting of the atom.'

...

'Your church,' I said, 'anticipated Carlo's reforms.'
'My church knew what it was doing,. It knew it would turn into a club for upperclass Englishmen. You may laugh at it, but it's a safe church, not like yours. It's tepid, because it knows that fire burns. It thinks fire should be imprisoned in an Adam fireplace, not held in the hand. Never despise tepidity,'

A. Burgess, Earthly Powers (1982), 345 and 629


I've paired these two, because I think they summarise Burgess' view of religion, which threatens to be true. The first is spoken by the catholic priest who later becomes pope; the latter by an English poet. This juxtaposition is as telling as the words, and it's the great glory of Anglicanism that it's almost true, but, just, not quite.