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
Religion is a search for transcendence. But transcendence isn't necessarily sited in an external god, which can be a very unspiritual, unreligious… — 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
“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
“Perhaps the central paradox of the religious life is that it seeks transcendence, a dimension of existence that goes beyond our mundane… — 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
“the sacred reality is not simply transcendent, “out there,” but is enshrined in every single human being, who must, therefore, be treated… — Karen Armstrong Copy Share Image
“Religious discourse was not intended to be understood literally because it was only possible to speak about a reality that transcended language… — Karen Armstrong Copy Share Image
...there is something wrong with any spirituality that does not inspire selfless concern for others — Karen Armstrong Copy Share Image
Religion is a practical discipline and it's one that we have always done, ever since humanity appeared on the scene when Homo… — Karen Armstrong Copy Share Image
Religious ideas and practices take root not because they are promoted by forceful theologians, nor because they can be shown to have… — Karen Armstrong Copy Share Image
The first person to promulgate the Golden Rule, which was the bedrock of this empathic spirituality, was Confucius 500 years before Christ. — Karen Armstrong Copy Share Image
“A disorderly spirituality that makes the practitioner dreamy, eccentric, or uncontrolled is a very bad sign indeed. In” — 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
