Interesting quotations

On topics from Caring to Cynicism

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Included are quotes on: Caring and compassion, Christ & Christianity,
creeds, church and state, civil rights, Constitution, courage, cynicism

Caring and compassion:

• Karen Armstrong: "Here in America, religious people often prefer to be right rather than compassionate. They've lost the Axial Age vision of concern for everybody."
• George Washington Carver: "How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant of the weak and strong. Because someday in life you will have been all of these."
• Tony Campolo: "I have three things I'd like to say to you tonight. First, while you were sleeping last night, 30,000 kids died of starvation or diseases related to malnutrition. Second, most of you don't give a s--t. What's worse is that you're more upset with the fact that I said s--t than the fact that 30,000 kids died last night."
• Albert Einstein: "A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty."
• Philo: "Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle."
• Teresa of Avila: "Christ has no body now on earth but yours, no hands but yours, no feet but yours. Yours are the eyes through which is to look out Christ's compassion to the world. Yours are the feet with which he is to go about doing good. Yours are the hands with which he is to bless men now."

Change:

• About God, commas and periods:
  • Gracie Allen: "Never place a period where God has placed a comma." From a note to her husband, George Burns, that he allegedly found after her death. ₆ The United Church of Christ based its "God is Still Speaking" advertising campaign on this concept. It was launched at 2004-Advent.
  • Pat Robertson: "Never place a comma where God has placed a period. God has spoken!" ₇
• Anon: "Everybody loves progress but nobody likes change."
• Anon: "Progress happens one funeral at a time."
• Anon: "All we can hope for is that the next generation will be a little less sexist, racist, homophobic, and xenophobic than the last."
• William Sloane Coffin: senior minister, Riverside Church, NYC: "The sense of fulfillment which comes with being in the right fight is a very wonderful thing." ₄
• Charles Darwin: "It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change."
• Marian Wright Edelman: "A lot of people are waiting for Martin Luther King or Mahatma Gandhi to come back but they are gone. We are it. It is up to us. It is up to you."
• Albert Einstein: "There is a race between mankind and the universe. Mankind is trying to build bigger, better, faster, and more foolproof machines. The universe is trying to build bigger, better, and faster fools. So far the universe is winning."
• Jerahmiel S. Grafstein: "All progress is by a winding staircase." Spoken in a debate in the Canadian Senate on a bill to legalize same-sex marriage. ₅
• Ghandi:
  • "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they attack you, then you win."
  • "You must be the change you wish to see in the world."
• Eric Hoffer: "In a time of drastic change, it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists."
• Peter Kropotkin: "It is hope, not despair, which makes successful revolutions."
• Ann Morrow Lindbergh: "Only in growth, reform, and change, paradoxically enough, is true security to be found."
• Margaret Mead: "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."
• Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.:
  • "One of the great liabilities of life is that all too many people find themselves living amid a great period of social change, and yet they fail to develop the new attitudes, the new mental responses, that the new situation demands. They end up sleeping through a revolution."
  • (From his "I Have a Dream" speech, 1963-AUG-28): Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must ever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force."

• David Knight, a spokesman for the Michigan Militia: "There are three methods to effect change: the jury box, the ballot box, and the cartridge box".
• John Stuart Mill: "The despotism of custom is everywhere the standing hindrance to human advancement."
• Stephen Post:  "The surest way to predict the future is to invent it." ₃
• Gola Wolf Richards: "Understanding the nature of change, changes the nature of understanding."
• R.J. Rushdoony: "History has never been dominated by majorities, but only by dedicated minorities who stand unconditionally on their faith."
• Mother Theresa: "So often people say that we should look to elderly, learn from their wisdom, their many years.  I disagree, I say we should look to the young: untarnished, without stereotypes implanted in their minds, no poison, no hatred in their hearts.  When we learn to see life through the eyes of a child, that is when we become truly wise."
• Claire Wolfe: "America is at that awkward stage. It's too late to work within the system, but too early to shoot the bastards."

Christ & Christianity:

• John Adams: "As I understand the Christian religion, it was, and is, a revelation. But how has it happened that millions of fables, tales, legends, have been blended with both Jewish and Christian revelation that have made them the most bloody religion that ever existed?" Letter to F. A. Van der Kamp.
• Bumper stickers from CarryaBigSticker: "What would Jesus bomb?"  "Who would Jesus torture?"
• G.K. Chesterton:
  • "The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried." - from Chapter 5, What's Wrong With The World.
  • "These are the days when the Christian is expected to praise every creed except his own."
• T.S. Eliot: "...the Church must be forever building, and always decaying, and always being restored." (From The Rock [1934])
• Ghandi: "I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. They are so unlike your Christ."
• Adolph Hitler: "The national government will maintain and defend the foundations on which the power of our nation rests. It will offer strong protection to Christianity as the very basis of our collective morality. Today Christians stand at the head of our country. We want to fill our culture again with the Christian spirit. We want to burn out all the recent immoral developments in literature, in the theatre, and in the press -- in short, we want to burn out the poison of immorality which has entered into our whole life and culture as a result of liberal excess during the past years." ₈
• Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States:
  • "I have examined all the known superstitions of the word, and I do not find in our particular superstition of Christianity one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology. Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned. What has been the effect of this coercion? To make one half the world fools and the other half hypocrites; to support roguery and error all over the earth."
  • "Christianity is the most perverted system that ever shone on man,"
• Jeremy Konopka on alt.atheism: "In the brain of every religious person there is a god shaped vacuum."
• Hans Konzelmann: "The church lives on the fact that modern research about Jesus is not known amongst the public."
• Jan LaRue: "The kindest, most-loving man who ever lived was crucified because He is intolerant of sin."
• James Madison:
  • "Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise."
  • "During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution."
• Peter Meiderlin: (1626 CE): "In essentials: unity; in non-essentials: liberty; in all things: charity."
• Rosie O©Donnell: "Radical Christianity is just as threatening as radical Islam in a country like the United States."
• John S. Spong: "I am not sure Christianity would have survived for 2000 years had it not been institutionalized. I am not sure if it will survive the next 100 years because it is institutionalized."
• Elton Trueblood: "The world is equally shocked at hearing Christianity criticized and seeing it practiced."

Church and State:

• Pope Pius IX (1792-1878): "The church ought to be separated from the state, and the state from the church."
• US Treaty of Tripoli, 1797-JUN-10. Ratified unanimously in the Senate and signed by John Adams into law. Often incorrectly attributed to George Washington: "..the government of the United States of America is in no sense founded on the Christian Religion...."
• Thomas Jefferson: "I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just."
• Thomas Jefferson, on 1814-FEB-10: "Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law."
• Dr. James Dobson, letter to "Focus on the Family" supporters, 1996-JUL on the need to restrict freedom of religion: "Tragically, the words written by Supreme Court Justices .... said, 'At the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.'"

Civil Rights:

• Anon: Slogan at the United Nations World Conference on Human Rights, Vienna, 1993: "Human Rights: Know Them, Demand Them, Defend Them'"
• Heinrich Heine, German poet: "That was only the beginning - where one burns books, one will finally also burn people."
• Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.:
  • "In the current struggle, there is one positive course of action. There is no alternative, for the alternative would connote a rear march..."
  • "In this Revolution, no plans have been written for retreat. Those who will not get into step will find that the parade has passed them by...."
• Pastor Martin Niemoller, writing in 1945 on his release from a World War II Nazi concentration camp: "First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out-- because I was not a communist; Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out-- because I was not a socialist; Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out-- because I was not a trade unionist; Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out-- because I was not a Jew; Then they came for me-- and there was no one left to speak out for me." _2,3
• Barbara & Christopher Purdom, Coordinators, Interfaith Working Group; written in a letter to the Indianapolis Star on the topic of same-sex marriages: "Moral offense to a simple majority is not constitutionally adequate for the restriction of rights to some of the people."
• Rep. Pat Schroeder (D): "The Pledge of Allegiance says '..with liberty and justice for all'. What part of 'all' don't you understand?"
• Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) "People need somebody to watch over them. Ninety-five percent of the people in the world need to be told what to do and how to behave."

Communication:

• Peter Drucker: "The most important thing in communication is to hear what is not being said."
• C.G. Jung: "It is high time we realized that it is pointless to praise the light and preach it if nobody can see it. It is much more needful to teach people the art of seeing."

Constitution:

• Noam Chomsky: "The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum."
• Justice Robert Jackson (1943): "The very purpose of a bill of rights is to withdraw certain subjects from...political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities."
• James Madison: "The purpose of the Constitution is to restrict the majority's ability to harm a minority." Federalist #10
• Cal Thomas, conservative commentator; Washington Times, 1996-OCT-23 : "We are approaching a time when Christians, especially, may have to declare the social contract between Enlightenment rationalists and Biblical believers - which formed the basis of the constitution written at our nation's founding - null and void."

Courage:

• William Sloane Coffin: senior minister, Riverside Church, NYC: "In life you can either follow your fears or be led by your values, by your passions." ₁
• Harvey Fierstein, 1992 Bennington Commencement: "Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one's definition of your life; but define yourself."
• Patrick Overton: "When you come to the edge of all the light you have, and must take a step into the darkness of the unknown, believe that one of two things will happen to you: either there will be something solid for you to stand on, or you will be taught how to fly."
• Charles Peguy, French poet: "We shall never know how many acts of cowardice have been motivated by the fear of appearing not sufficiently progressive."
• W. Clement Stone: "Have the courage to say no. Have the courage to face the truth. Do the right thing because it is right. These are the magic keys to living your life with integrity."

Creeds:

• Robert G. Ingersoll (1833-1899): "Happiness is the only good. The time to be happy is now. The place to be happy is here. The way to be happy is to make others so. This creed is somewhat short, but is long enough for this life; long enough for this world. If there is another world, when we get there we can make another creed. But this creed certainly will do for this life."
• Anon (One version of the Wiccan Rede; a traditional creed of the Wiccan Neopagan faith): "Do what you wish, as long as it harms none, including yourself."
• Yeshua of Nazareth (Jesus Christ; reported in the Christian Scriptures, Mark 12:30-31): "And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these."

Cults:

The term "cult" contains a lot of negative baggage. We recommend using the term "new religious movement."

• Ben Alexander of ESP Ministries: "A cult is a religious perversion.... A cult distorts the [biblical] word of God by perverting the truth into a lie."  ₉
• Ron Barrier: "I have often thought that the difference between a cult and a religion is an IRS ruling."  ₁₀
• "BC" Cartoon: "Religious Cult: The church down the street from yours." Humorous quotation seen in a B.C. cartoon, 1994-APR-30
• Anthony Campbell: "...one person's cult is another's religion; all religions begin life as cults. An alternative definition is that a cult is a religion which you happen to dislike." ₁₁
• Jim Heldberg: "It's easy to tell the difference - a cult is someone else's religion. Corollary: "A fanatic is someone who believes something more strongly than you do."  ₁₀
• Philip Kennicott: "Cult is a word without much use outside the realm of religious mudslinging."  ₁₂
• J. Gordon Melton, founder and director of The Institute for the Study of American Religion: "When someone uses the word 'cult,' it usually says more about them than the group," ₁₃
• Jan Shipps, a Methodist scholar: "When a cult grows up, it becomes a culture." ₁₃

Cynicism:

• Anon: "Cynics regarded everybody as equally corrupt... Idealists regarded everybody as equally corrupt, except themselves."
• Lillian Hellman: "Cynicism is an unpleasant way of saying the truth."
• Esa Saarinen: "The opposite of creativity is cynicism"
• Lily Tomlin: "No matter how cynical I get, I can't keep up."
• David Wolf: "Idealism is what precedes experience, cynicism is what follows."

References used:

1. "Profile: William Sloane Coffin," 2004-AUG-27, Religion & Ethics Newsweekly, at: http://www.pbs.org/
2. The above wording appears to be correct. However, a very popular distortion of his saying cites, in order: labor unions, Communists, Jews, and Catholics.
3. Franklin H. Littell, "First They Came for the Jews," Christian Ethics Today, 2001-MAY-27, at: http://www.christianethicstoday.com/
4. "Profile: William Sloane Coffin," 2004-AUG-27, Religion & Ethics Newsweekly, at: http://www.pbs.org/
5. "Debates of the Senate (Hansard)," Volume 142, Issue 84, 2005-JUL-19, at: http://www.parl.gc.ca/
6. "God is still speaking," United Church of Christ, at: http://www.stillspeaking.com/
7. Attributed to Pat Robertson, 700 Club TV show, Late 2004. Cited by Rev. Rich Smith, 2004-DEC-19, at: http://www.westmorelanducc.org/
8. Michael Hakeem, "The Speeches of Adolph Hitler, 1922-1939, Vol. 1," Oxford University Press, (1942), Pages 871-872.
9. Ben Alexander, "The challenge of the cults," ESP Ministries, at: http://www.espministries.com/
10. Quotes extracted from "Heaven's Sake!," at: http://nowscape.com/
11. Anthony Campbell, "David V. Barrett: THE NEW BELIEVERS, A survey of sects, cults and alternative religions," Book review, 2001, at: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/
12. Philip Kennicott, in a Washington Post article that is no longer available online.
13. Rhonda Parks Manville, "UCSB research of 'new religions' returns surprises," Santa Barbara News-Press, 2004-JUL-30, at: http://news.newspress.com/
14. Mary Jordan, "The New Face of Global Mormonism: Tech-Savvy Missionary Church Thrives as Far Afield as Africa." Washington Post, 2007-NOV-19, Page A01, at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/

Copyright © 1996 to 2008 by Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance.
Copyrights for the individual quotations held by their creators
Last updated: 2008-JUL-17
Compiled by: B.A. Robinson

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