Quotes Tagged "spirituality"

We all have a thirst for wonder. It's a deeply human quality. Science and religion are both bound up with it. What I'm saying is, you don't have to make stories up, you don't have to exaggerate. There's wonder and awe enough in the real world. Nature's a lot better at inventing wonders than we are.

I went to the springs while the sun was still up, and sitting on a rocky outcrop above the cave mouth I watched the light grow reddish across the misty pools, and listened to the troubled voice of the water. After a while I moved farther up the hill, where I could hear birds singing near and far in the silence of the trees. The presence of the trees was very strong...The big oaks stood so many, so massive in their other life, in their deep, rooted silence: the awe of them came on me, the religion.

Faith does not offer a strong link between our beliefs and actual states of the world.

We...believe that art is religious, because it is one of man's highest aspirations. There is no such thing as pagan art, only good and bad art.

A spirtually illumined soul lives in the world, yet is never contaminated by it.

Saying spirituality cannot exist without religion is like saying hamburgers cannot exist without McDonald's.

Compassion is the religion of the heart.

I am not frightened of my beliefs. If there is a God who is threatening me with damnation because I don't believe in Him, so be it. I've lived my life in conscience, and I will suffer damnation willingly in conscience against a tyrannical God who would damn me because, on the basis of the intelligence He gave me, I have come to a conclusion doubting His existence, and I will continue to be a skeptic all of my life.

To understand Jesus when he stated that he was the way, the truth and the life, one must first recognize his manner of a walk and believe firmly that his manner is true.

If you can show people how to build castles, make sure you do not neglect building and nurturing your own.

A basket of ripe fruit is holier than any prayer book.

And now brothers, I will ask you a terrible question, and God knows I ask it also of myself. Is the truth beyond all truths, beyond the stars, just this: that to live without him is the real death, that to die with him the only life?

As obvious as it is, then, Jesus is bigger than any one religion. He didn't come to start a new religion, and he continually disrupted whatever conventions or systems or establishments that existed in his day. He will always transcend whatever cages and labels are created to contain him, especially the one called 'Christianity'.

If we want hell, if we want heaven, they are ours. That's how love works. It can't be forced, manipulated, or coerced. It always leaves room for the other to decide. God says yes, we can have what we want, because love wins.

...religion either produces the very best people or the very worst.

Myths are, in fact...neither primitive nor untrue. They are, rather, a kind of poetry that helps us make sense of the world and our place in it.

Jesus Christ says, 'Kill me and in 3 days, not only this temple, but all temples in the whole world will be out of business.' This is the most stunning thing any human being has ever said.

Disciples and devotees…what are most of them doing? Worshipping the teapot instead of drinking the tea!

When it's all over and the dust from our Ancestors bodies and our own settle from the four winds only then will we see that we were here!

These days when Christians bicker they exaggerate passion into a legalistic belief and prosperity into a lukewarm belief.