Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful.

The wording comes from Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. I (1776), chapter II: ‘The various modes of worship, which prevailed in the Roman world, were all considered by the people, as equally true; by the philosopher, as equally false; and by the magistrate, as equally useful.’ In 1868 F. W. Farrar (Seekers after God, p. 45) quoted it loosely as “The common worship was regarded … by the people as equally true, by the philosophers as equally false, and by the magistrates as equally useful” and called it “little more than a translation from Seneca”, setting it beside Seneca’s fragment on the civic gods preserved by Augustine. Elbert Hubbard, in his Little Journeys essay on Seneca (1904 according to Wikiquote; read here in the 1916 Memorial Edition), recast it as ‘Religion was regarded by the common people as true, by the philosophers as false, and by the rulers as useful’, repeating Farrar’s claim that Gibbon was ‘making a free translation from Seneca’. Ira D. Cardiff’s What Great Men Think About Religion (1945), which gives no sources, credits it to Seneca outright, and later anthologies (George Seldes’s The Great Quotations; James Haught, 2000 Years of Disbelief, 1996) repeat the credit, according to the Wikiquote Talk page. Gibbon himself names no source, and Wikiquote’s editors found the line in none of Seneca’s works or their published translations. The English texts held here (the Letters and four dialogues) were searched for ‘common people’ or ‘vulgar’ with religion, gods or worship, and for ‘useful’ with religion or worship, with no match. The nearest genuine thought is a fragment of Seneca’s lost On Superstition quoted by Augustine (City of God VI.10): the wise man will observe the rites as commanded by the laws, not as pleasing to the gods, remembering that the worship of the ‘ignoble crowd of gods’ belongs to custom rather than to reality. This is the passage Farrar, and Hubbard after him, meant by Gibbon’s “translation”; it says something different and is not this sentence.

1. 1776Before it · credited to Edward GibbonGibbon writes the sentence the saying is made from, on toleration under the Antonines; he names no source.The various modes of worship, which prevailed in the Roman world, were all considered by the people, as equally true; by the philosopher, as equally false; and by the magistrate, as equally useful.Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. I (London, 1776), chapter II, part I. Checked in a full-text transcription. Source
2. 1868Before it · credited to Edward Gibbon, as ‘little more than a translation from Seneca’F. W. Farrar’s Seekers after God quotes Gibbon loosely (‘regarded’, ‘philosophers’, ‘magistrates’) and calls the remark ‘little more than a translation from Seneca’, setting it beside the On Superstition fragment preserved by Augustine; Hubbard’s later passage follows Farrar’s wording and his next quotation from Augustine word for word but for the spelling ‘worshiped’.”The common worship was regarded,” says Gibbon, “by the people as equally true, by the philosophers as equally false, and by the magistrates as equally useful.” And this famous remark is little more than a translation from SenecaF. W. Farrar, Seekers after God (London: Macmillan, 1868), ‘Seneca’, chapter III, ‘The State of Roman Society’, p. 45. Checked in the text of a page scan, not the image. Source
3. 1904Earliest found · credited to Edward Gibbon, ‘making a free translation from Seneca’Elbert Hubbard’s Little Journeys essay on Seneca recasts Gibbon’s sentence into nearly the circulating form and calls it Gibbon’s free translation from Seneca.Elbert Hubbard, Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Philosophers: Seneca (1904). Checked on another researcher’s citation, not seen first-hand. Source
4. 1916Spread · credited to Edward Gibbon, after SenecaThe Memorial Edition of Hubbard’s Little Journeys reprints the passage.Gibbon, making a free translation from Seneca, says, “Religion was regarded by the common people as true, by the philosophers as false, and by the rulers as useful.”Elbert Hubbard, Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Philosophers, vol. 8, Memorial Edition (New York, 1916), ‘Seneca’. Checked in a full-text transcription. Source
5. 1945Credited to SenecaIra D. Cardiff’s anthology What Great Men Think About Religion credits the reworded line to Seneca himself, with ‘the wise’ for ‘the philosophers’ and no source.Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful.Ira D. Cardiff, What Great Men Think About Religion (1945), p. 342. Checked on another researcher’s citation, not seen first-hand. Source
6. 1996Spread · credited to SenecaJames Haught’s 2000 Years of Disbelief repeats the Seneca credit.James A. Haught, 2000 Years of Disbelief: Famous People with the Courage to Doubt (Amherst: Prometheus Books, 1996), p. 21. Checked on another researcher’s citation, not seen first-hand. Source

Repeated in freethinkers’ anthologies and across the web, credited to Seneca with no work named. It is a reworded version of a sentence by the English historian Edward Gibbon on religious toleration in the Roman Empire, from the second chapter of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776).

The common people believe the official religion, the educated see through it, and those in power find it a useful tool. Gibbon’s own sentence is about the Roman Empire’s many cults: all were equally true to the people, equally false to the philosopher and equally useful to the magistrate, which is why toleration reigned.

Used as an ancient Stoic’s verdict on religion in general. The words are an eighteenth-century historian’s description of Roman religious policy; and the nearest real Seneca, preserved by Augustine, is milder and different: the wise man keeps the civic rites because the law commands them, not because they please the gods.

• Translated back from another languageReligion was regarded by the common people as true, by the philosophers as false, and by the rulers as useful. Elbert Hubbard’s recasting of Gibbon, presented as ‘a free translation from Seneca’. Where it was seen

• Augustine of Hippo: Preserves a fragment of Seneca’s lost On Superstition: the wise man keeps the civic rites ‘as being commanded by the laws, but not as being pleasing to the gods’, and worships the crowd of gods remembering ‘that its worship belongs rather to custom than to reality’ (tr. Marcus Dods).

Faith, Truth, Power, Society, Politics, Religion

• All religions are equally sublime to the ignorant, useful to the politician, and ridiculous to the philosopher. (misattributed) Lucretius
• A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes. (not found) Mark Twain
• We buy things we don’t need with money we don’t have to impress people we don’t like. (misattributed) Chuck Palahniuk
• Anyone taken as an individual is tolerably sensible—as a member of a crowd, he at once becomes a blockhead. (misattributed) Bernard Baruch
• There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics. (misattributed) Mark Twain

• en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Seneca_the_Younger#Disputed
• en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Talk:Seneca_the_Younger
• gutenberg.org/ebooks/731
• gutenberg.org/ebooks/23640
• gutenberg.org/ebooks/45304
• archive.org/details/seekersaftergod00farr_0
• gutenberg.org/ebooks/10846

“Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful.” Attributed to Seneca the Younger. No. Edward Gibbon wrote it, not Seneca. Quotogeny, https://quotogeny.com/q/religion-is-regarded-by-the-common-people-as-true/ (checked 23 October 2026).

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