Quotes by Huston Smith

“With mind distracted, never thinking, "Death is coming,"To slave away on the pointless business of mundane life,And then to come out empty--it is a tragic error. (116)trans by Robert Thurman”

“Muhammad adhered meticulously to the charter he forged for Medina, which - grounded as it was in the Quranic injunction, "Let there be no compulsion in religion" (2:256) - is arguably the first man...”

“Never during its pilgrimage is the human spirit completely adrift and alone. From start to finish its nucleus is the Atman, the god-within... underlying its whirlpool of transient feelings, emotion...”

“Institutions are not pretty. Show me a pretty government. Healing is wonderful, but the American Medical Association? Learning is wonderful, but universities? The same is true for religion... relig...”

“The only power that can effect transformations of the order (of Jesus) is love. It remained for the 20th century to discover that locked within the atom is the energy of the sun itself. For this en...”

“The disciples of Jesus found themselves thinking that if divine goodness were to manifest itself in human form, this (he) is how it would behave he invited people to see differently instead of tell...”

“Most of the book deals with things we already know yet never learn.”

“The larger the island of knowledge, the longer the shoreline of wonder.”

“Sex is the divine in its most available epiphany.”

“Practice giving things away, not just things you don't care about, but things you do like. Remember, it is not the size of a gift, it is its quality and the amount of mental attachment you overcome...”

“Might we begin then to transform our passing illuminations into abiding light?”

“The modern period adds social ethics to religions agenda, for we now realize that social structures are not like laws of nature. They are human creations, so we are responsible for them.”

“Science is like a flashlight in the hands of people living in a huge balloon. They can illuminate anything in the balloon, but cannot shine it outside the balloon to see where it is floating - or i...”

“Poetry is a special use of language that opens onto the real. The business of the poet is truth telling, which is why in the Celtic tradition no one could be a teacher unless he or she was a poet.”

“I don't have any fear of death. I do, however, have an inordinate fear of becoming dependent on other people. To me, that's the severest test, not death.”

“Human intelligence is a reflection of the intelligence that produces everything. In knowing, we are simply extending the intelligence that comes to and constitutes us. We mimic the mind of God, so ...”

“God has to speak to each person in their own language, in their own idioms. Take Spanish, Chinese. You can express the same thought, but to different people you have to use a different language. It...”

“Every society and religion has rules, for both have moral laws. And the essence of morality consists, as in art, of drawing the line somewhere.”

“I am critical of modernity giving science and technology a blank check as if it were the fountain of all truth. That is not true. And I think I may have introduced a word which has now caught on qu...”

“We all carry it within us: supreme strength the fullness of wisdom unquenchable joy. It is never thwarted and cannot be destroyed.”