Quotes

[tulc]

"On this journey the traveler abideth in every land and dwelleth in every
region. In every face, he seeketh the beauty of the Friend; in every country
he looketh for the Beloved. He joineth every company, and seeketh fellowship
with every soul, that haply in some mind he may uncover the secret of the
Friend, or in some face he may behold the beauty of the Loved One."
-Bahá'u'lláh (The Seven Valleys, p. 6, 7)

 

[tulc]

How else but through a broken heart may Lord Christ enter in?
-Oscar Wilde

 

[tulc]

"Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be
one, he must approve the homage of reason rather than of blind-folded fear."
-Thomas Jefferson

 

[TheManeki]

The opposite of the religious fanatic is not the fanatical atheist but the gentle cynic who cares not whether there is a god or not.

--Eric Hoffer

Thanks for the thread and all the quotes, tulc!

 

[tulc]

Seven Deadly Sins:
Politics' without Principle.
Wealth without Work.
Commerce without Morality.
Pleasure without Conscience.
Education without character.
Science without Humanity.
Worship without Sacrifice.
-Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869-1948)

 

[tulc]

"Because they know not the forces of nature, and in order that they may have
comrades in their ignorance, they suffer not that others should search out
anything, and would have us believe like rustics and ask no reason ... But
we ask in all things a reason must be sought."
-William of Conches (1080-1154)

 

[tulc]

"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with
senses, reason, and intellect has intended us to forego their use and by
some other means given us knowledge which we can attain by them."
-Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)

 

[tulc]

Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world.
-Arthur Schopenhauer

 

[tulc]

A faith that cannot survive collision with the truth is not worth many regrets.
-arthur c clarke

 

[tulc]

We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.
-Jonathan Swift

 

[tulc]

"Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right"
-Isaac Asimov

 

[tulc]

'There are no atheists in foxholes' isn't an argument against atheism,
it's an argument against foxholes.
-James Morrow

 

[tulc]

If you want to see the brave,
look for those who can forgive.
If you want to see the heroic,
look at those who can love in return for hatred.
-Bhagavad Gita

 

[tulc]

The basic fact is that humanity survives through kindness, love and compassion.
That human beings can develop these qualities is their real blessing.
-Dalai Lama

 

[tulc]

There are chords in the hearts of the most reckless which cannot be touched
without emotion. Even with the utterly lost, to whom life and death are
equally jests, there are matters of which no jest can be made.
-A.E. Poe (Masque of the Red Death)

 

[tulc]

"It was not so much who said or wrote something, but whether or not what was
said or written rang a bell of truth within the reader. This indicator of
truth within the reader, it was believed, was put there by the Divine as a
way of divining truth from falsehood. Whatever a Deists would read-be it
Bible, book, or almanac-they would listen for the bell."
-Peter McWilliams

 

[tulc]

When we believe something to be the absolute truth, we are closed. We are no
longer open to the understanding and insight of other people, and this is
because the object of our faith is just an idea, not a living thing. But if
the object of your faith is your direct experience and your insight, then
you can always be open. You can grow everyday in your practice, in sharing
the fruit of your practice, and in making your faith, love, and happiness
grow.
-Thich Nhat Hanh

 

[tulc]

"When the natural weakness and imperfection of human understanding is
considered, with the unavoidable influences of education, custom, books and
company, upon our ways of thinking, I imagine a man must have a good deal of
vanity who believes, and a good deal of boldness who affirms, that all the
doctrines he holds, are true, and all he rejects are false."
-Benjamin Franklin

 

[tulc]

ONLY Breath
Not Christian or Jew or Muslim,
not Hindu, Buddhist, sufi, or zen. Not any religion or cultural system.

I am not from the East or the West,
not out of the ocean
or up from the ground,
not natural or etheral,
not composed of elements at all.

I do not exist,
am not an entity in this world
or the next,
did not decend from Adam or Eve
or any origin story.

My place is placeless,
a trace of the traceless.

Neither body or soul.

I belong to the beloved,
have seen the two worlds as one
and that one call to and know,
first, last, outer, inner,
only that breath breathing human being.
-Rumi

 

[tulc]

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field.
I'll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase "each other"
doesn't make any sense.
-Rumi