Quotes from Karen Armstrong

Disputes that were secular in origin, such as the Arab-Israeli conflict, have been allowed to fester and become "holy," and once they have been sacralized, positions tend to harden and become resistant to pragmatic solutions.

true insight does not consist of the acquisition of information but comes from mastering our egotism and greed.5

beliefs and doctrines are not as important in Islam as they are in Christianity. Like Judaism, Islam is a religion that requires people to live in a certain way, rather than to accept certain credal propositions. It stresses orthopraxy rather than orthodoxy.

It is also necessary in both public and private life to refrain consistently and empathically from inflicting pain. To act or speak violently out of spite, chauvinism or self-interest, to impoverish, exploit or deny basic rights to anybody, and to incite hatred by denigrating others—even our enemies—is a denial of our common humanity.

cultivate an informed empathy with the suffering of all human beings—even those regarded as enemies.

compassion" derives from the Latin patiri and the Greek pathein, meaning "to suffer, undergo, or experience." So "compassion" means "to endure [something] with another person," to put ourselves in somebody else's shoes

But aggression, righteous condemnation, and insult only make matters worse. Somehow we have to break the escalating cycle of attack and counterattack.

Martin Luther King Jr. believed that the highest point of Jesus's life was the moment when he forgave his executioners

But it was more than that. Paris represented life, sensuality, freedom, and fun. And that somehow made it impossible.

Qur'an insisted tirelessly. "If one is patient in adversity and forgives—this, behold, is indeed something to set one's heart upon.

the Golden Rule, which asks us to look into our own hearts, discover what gives us pain, and then refuse, under any circumstance whatsoever, to inflict that pain on anybody else.

Compassion can be defined, therefore, as an attitude of principled, consistent altruism. The

It's a great event to get outside and enjoy nature. I find it very exciting no matter how many times I see bald eagles.

Whatever conclusions we reach about the reality of God, the history of this idea must tell us something important about the human mind and the nature of our aspiration.

You put yourself in the receptive frame of mind with which we approach music or poetry, which you can measure the difference on a neurological scanner.

God [is] not the exclusive property of any one tradition. The divine light [cannot] be confined to a single lamp, belonging to the East or the West, but enlightens all human beings.

Buddhists talk about nirvana in very much the same terms as monotheists describe God.

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 people.

Let's use our stories to encourage listening to one another and to hear not just the good news, but also the pain that lies at the back of a lot of people's stories and histories.

Jesus did not spend a great deal of time discoursing about the trinity or original sin or the incarnation, which have preoccupied later Christians. He went around doing good and being compassionate.

Intelligence doesn't just mean tracking down terrorists; It means finding out what is in people's hearts and minds and discovering the complexity of most issues.

In the holy city of Mecca, violence of any kind was forbidden. From the moment they left home, pilgrims were not permitted to carry weapons, to swat an insect or speak an angry word, a discipline that introduced them to a new way of living.

Religion isn't about believing things. It's ethical alchemy. It's about behaving in a way that changes you, that gives you intimations of holiness and sacredness.

I am not interested in the afterlife. Religion is supposed to be about losing your ego, not preserving it eternally in optimum conditions.