THE WORLD'S RELIGIONS
Huston Smith
Chapters on Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, Islam, Judaism and Christianity, plus chapters on primal religions such as native traditions of the Americas, Australia, Africa and Oceania, with expanded sections on the inner dimensions of these great religions.
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| 1 |
"To the eye of the heart, the world IS God-in-disguise, God veiled."
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| 2 |
"For nearly two thousand years the first sentence a Chinese child, living in the direct light of Confucius, was taught to read was…'Human beings are by nature good.' We may smile at the undisguised moralizing, but every nation needs it.'"
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"Twenty-five hundred years ago it took an exceptional man like Diogenes to exclaim, 'I am not an Athenian or a Greek but a citizen of the world.' Today we must all be struggling to make those words our own. We have come to the point in history when anyone who is only Japanese or American, only Oriental or Occidental, is only half human. The other half that beats with the pulse of all humanity has yet to be born."
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"If we could really understand life, if we could really understand ourselves, we would find neither a problem. Humanistic psychology proceeds on the same assumption. When 'awareness of experience is fully operating', Carl Rogers writes, 'human behavior is to be trusted, for in these moments the human organism becomes aware of its delicacy and tenderness towards others.'"
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"Human bodies are of course separate, but on a deeper level we are joined like icebergs in a common floe."
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"The overwhelming thrust of the Koran is to proclaim the unity, omnipotence, omniscience, and mercy of God."
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| 7 |
"Every human being, simply by virtue of his or her humanity, is a child of God and therefore in possession of rights that even kings must respect."
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"The integrating principle of the whole – the Spirit, as it were, of the universe – instinct without contrivance, flows with purpose." George Romanes, Charles Darwin's colleague
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| 9 |
"The prerequisite of political stability is social justice, for it is in the nature of things that injustice will not endure."
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| 10 |
"When a heart is illumined by true knowledge, it knows that above all these wars of sects and sectarians presides the one indivisible, eternal, all-knowing bliss." Ramakrishna
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| 11 |
"All life down to its smallest element, can, if rightly approached, be seen as a reflection of the infinite source of holiness, which is God."
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| 12 |
"Underlying the human self and animating it is a reservoir of being that never dies, is never exhausted, and is unrestricted in consciousness and bliss."
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| 13 |
"All of us dwell on the brink of the infinite ocean of life's creative power. We carry it within us: supreme strength, the fullness of wisdom, unquenchable joy. It is never thwarted and cannot be destroyed."
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"One has lived from an endless past and will live into an endless future. At this very moment one partakes of Eternal Life – blissful, luminous, pure." Ruth Fuller Sasaki, 'Zen – A Religion'
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| 15 |
"We live in a world in which there is no chance or accident. Those words are simply covers for ignorance."
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"God is the Cosmic Dancer, whose routine is all creatures and all worlds."
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| 17 |
"You can find God in the world of everyday affairs as readily as anywhere."
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| 18 |
"The will remains free. The lawfulness of things makes the present state the product of prior acts, but within the present the will is influenced but not controlled. People remain at liberty to shape their destinies."
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| 19 |
"The One is none other than the All, the All none other than the One. Take your stand on this, and the rest will follow of its own accord." Seng Ts'an, 'Trust in the Heart'
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| 20 |
"The Supreme Being is…everything in his creation. The various forms of creation have some of his spirit within them." Carl Gorman, Navajo (Native American) artist
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| 21 |
"Value, virtue, and spiritual fulfillment come through realizing the potentialities that are uniquely one's own; in ways that are not inconsequential, those possibilities differ from those of every other soul that ever has lived, or ever will live in the future."
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| 22 |
"There is but one reality, like a brimming ocean, boundless as the sky, indivisible, absolute."
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| 23 |
"I saw my Lord with the eye of the Heart. I said: 'Who are you?' He answered: 'You.'" Al-Hallaj
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"Every moment…is Indra's cosmic net, laced with jewels at every juncture. Each jewel reflects the others, together with all the reflections IN the others."
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"Locked in every human being is a store of love that partakes of the divine – the 'imago dei', image of God, it is sometimes called."
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We are gathering together the primary insights of spirituality and bringing them together into one place.
This archive contains 11,754 quotes, taken from 635 references,
organized in terms of 39 primary categories. Quotes are randomized and appear in a different way at every click.
Explore the navigation options to review these insights.
We include
- All major spiritual and religious traditions, from all cultures, and all historical epochs
- Major psychologists, philosophers, writers, scholars and leading religious personalities
- Sources in classical religion as well as voices from new consciousness, esotericism and mysticism
- Choices are guided by the spirit of oneness, love, kindness, inclusion and community
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