"Apart from the solid facts and truths that we may learn from religion, apart from the comforts that we may gain from it, religion, as a science, as a study, is the greatest and healthiest exercise that the human mind can have. This pursuit of the Infinite, this struggle to grasp the Infinite, this effort to get beyond the limitations of the senses - out of matter, as it were - and to evolve the spiritual man - this striving day and night to make the Infinite one with our being - this struggle itself is the grandest and most glorious that man can make. Some persons find the greatest pleasure in eating. We have no right to say that they should not. Others find the greatest pleasure in possessing certain things. We have no right to say that they should not. But they also have no right to say "no" to the man who finds his highest pleasure in spiritual thought."

- Swami Vivekananda, "The Necessity of Religion" (June 7, 1896, Royal Institute of Painters, London), Jnana Yoga, Complete Works: Vol 2