Quotes from Huston Smith

It's often difficult for us to act compassionately, but sacred art eases the difficulty by ennobling us.

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.

Built into human makeup is a longing for a 'more' that the world of everyday experience cannot requite.

The goal of spiritual life is not altered states, but altered traits

I am very orthodox in thinking that Jesus acted in his life the way God would have acted if God had assumed human form.

Pure science - this vision of the universe as 15 billion light years across - I am bedazzled and awed by it.

When the scientific method came into being, it gave us a new window on the truth; namely, a method by laboratory-controlled experiments to winnow true hypotheses from false ones.

Swami Ashokananda was a brilliant and accomplished spiritual teacher in the West.

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

There are wonderfully intrinsic moments when life makes sense, and doubts are banished as irrelevant in those moments. Of course, we can't stay in that state. We're not here to be blissed out all the time.

Rationalism and Newtonian science has lured us into dark woods, but a new metaphysics can rescue us.

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 quite a bit, scientism. Science is good. It simply reports a discovery.

Whether things turn out for the better depends on what we do. We ought not spend our time masterminding the future, but recognize our marching orders: to do the best we can for history and the planet.

Swallow your pride and admit that we all need help at times.

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 to speak. Or better, we continue and extend it.

No one in human history has given as much thought to the interweaving of altered states of consciousness and religion as I have.

When I read the Upanishads, which are part of Vedanta, I found a profundity of worldview that made my Christianity seem like third grade.

Walnuts have a shell, and they have a kernel. Religions are the same. They have an essence, but then they have a protective coating. This is not the only way to put it. But it's my way. So the kernels are the same. However, the shells are different.

So always, if we look back, concern for face-to-face morality, and its modern emphasis on justice as well, have historically evolved as religious issues.

The faith I was born into formed me. I come from a missionary family - I grew up in China - and in my case, my religious upbringing was positive. Of course, not everyone has this experience. I know many of my students are what I have come to think of as wounded Christians or wounded Jews.

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 think it matters almost infinitely that we practice one of the authentic religions. But if you mean does it make any difference which. The answer is no, as long as each is followed with equal intensity, sincerity, dedication.

Detachment from the finite self or attachment to the whole of things—we can state the phenomenon either positively or negatively. When it occurs, life is lifted above the possibility of frustration and above ennui—the third threat to joy—as well, for the cosmic drama is too spectacular to permit boredom in the face of such vivid identification.

Hinduism advises such people not to try to think of God as the supreme instance of abstractions like being or consciousness, and instead to think of God as the archetype of the noblest reality they encounter in the natural world.