Each of the world religions has its own particular genius, its own special insight into the nature and requirements of compassion, and… — Karen Armstrong Copy Share Image
The early doctrines of the church, even doctrines like Trinity and Incarnation were originally also calls for action, calls for selflessness, calls… — Karen Armstrong Copy Share Image
“A truly compassionate person touches a chord in us that resonates with some of our deepest yearnings. People flock to such individuals,… — Karen Armstrong Copy Share Image
“Then, as now, there would always be people who preferred the option of devoting their religious energies to sacred space over the… — Karen Armstrong Copy Share Image
If your understanding of the divine made you kinder, more empathetic, and impelled you to express sympathy in concrete acts of loving-kindness,… — Karen Armstrong Copy Share Image
The more aggressive our ideologies become, the more aggressive our discourse whether it's in the United States, from Washington D.C., or whether… — Karen Armstrong Copy Share Image
Religions have found that if you behave in a certain way, if you sort of perform certain rituals that expand your mind… — Karen Armstrong Copy Share Image
Religions have always stressed that compassion is not only central to religious life, it is the key to enlightenment and it the… — Karen Armstrong Copy Share Image
[T]he family is a school of compassion because it is here that we learn to live with other people. (68) — Karen Armstrong Copy Share Image
Compassion is not feeling sorry for others. It's not soft. It requires an intellectual effort. — Karen Armstrong Copy Share Image
Compassion is not a popular virtue. Very often when I talk to religious people, and mention how important it is that compassion… — Karen Armstrong Copy Share Image
“cultivate an informed empathy with the suffering of all human beings—even those regarded as enemies.” — Karen Armstrong Copy Share Image
Often when religious leaders come together, they talk about a particular sexual ethic, or an abstruse doctrine, as though this, rather than… — Karen Armstrong Copy Share Image
“Compassion can be defined, therefore, as an attitude of principled, consistent altruism. The” — Karen Armstrong Copy Share Image
And so, one of the reasons why I started my Charter for Compassion, was to bring the Golden Rule back to the… — Karen Armstrong Copy Share Image
If it is not tempered by compassion, and empathy, reason can lead men and women into a moral void. — Karen Armstrong Copy Share Image
Compassion has to become a discipline. It's something that you do. It's no good thinking that you agree with compassion or not,… — Karen Armstrong Copy Share Image
“We need myths that will help us to identify with all our fellow-beings, not simply with those who belong to our ethnic,… — Karen Armstrong Copy Share Image
Compassion is a practically acquired knowledge, like dancing. You must do it and practice diligently day by day. — Karen Armstrong Copy Share Image
Compassion has been advocated by all the great faiths because it has been found to be the safest and surest means of… — Karen Armstrong Copy Share Image
Compassion is aptly summed up in the Golden Rule, which asks us to look into our own hearts, discover what gives us… — Karen Armstrong Copy Share Image
“With this new empathetic understanding of the context, we will find that we can imagine ourselves, in similar circumstances, feeling the same.” — Karen Armstrong Copy Share Image
If it is written and read with serious attention, a novel, like a myth or any great work of art, can become an initiation… — Karen Armstrong Copy Share Image
A gentleman is not born but crafted. He had to work on himself in the same way as a sculptor shaped a rough stone… — Karen Armstrong Copy Share Image
I was a lousy nun. I couldn't do it. I couldn't find God. It wasn't suitable for me. It is suitable for very few… — Karen Armstrong Copy Share Image
I have become convinced, through my studies, that the only way to achieve a safe, just and viable world is to live by the… — Karen Armstrong Copy Share Image
In the past some of the most influential Jewish, Christian and Muslim theologians, such as Maimonides, Aquinas and Ibn Sina, made it clear that… — Karen Armstrong Copy Share Image
The great task of our time is to build a global society, where people can live together in peace — Karen Armstrong Copy Share Image
We want to create, never mind the leaders or the bishops or chief rabbis or imams, or Popes. We want to create a grassroots… — Karen Armstrong Copy Share Image
If we don't manage to implement the Golden Rule globally, so that we treat all peoples, wherever and whoever they may be, as though… — Karen Armstrong Copy Share Image
After I left the convent, for 15 years I was worn out with religion, I wanted nothing whatever to do with it. I felt… — Karen Armstrong Copy Share Image
“As we have seen, so many of the things we once took for granted have proved unreliable that we may have to “forget” old… — Karen Armstrong Copy Share Image
Yet a personal God can become a grave liability. He can be a mere idol carved in our own image, a projection of our… — Karen Armstrong Copy Share Image
“I discovered that I felt at home and alive in the silence, which compelled me to enter my interior world and around there. Without… — Karen Armstrong Copy Share Image