Quotes About Experience

Like science and technology, mythology, as we shall see, is not about opting out of this world, but about enabling us to live more intensely within it.

When the horror recedes and the world resumes its normal shape, you cannot forget it. You have seen what is really there, the empty horror that exists when the consoling illusion of our mundane experience is stripped away, so you can never respond to the world in quite the same way again. from Coleridge: Like one, that on a lonesome road Doth walk in fear and dread, And having once turned round walks on, And turns no more his head; Because he knows, a frightful fiend Doth close behind him tread

Mythology was not about theology, in the modern sense, but about human experience. People thought that gods, humans, animals and nature were inextricably bound up together, subject to the same laws, and composed of the same divine substance. There

people derived their faith in Jesus from the experience of living together in a close-knit, minority community that challenged the unequal distribution of wealth and power

The new Sufi tariqahs founded at this time stressed the unlimited potential of human life. Sufis could experience on the spiritual plane what the Mongols had so nearly achieved in terrestrial politics

There is a linguistic connection between the three words "myth," "mysticism" and "mystery." All are derived from the Greek verb musteion: to close the eyes or the mouth. All three words, therefore, are rooted in an experience of darkness and silence.

Another peculiar characteristic of the human mind is its ability to have ideas and experiences that we cannot explain rationally. We have imagination, a faculty that enables us to think of something that is not immediately present, and that, when we first conceive it, has no objective existence. The imagination is the faculty that produces religion and mythology.

As one Rabbi put it, "God does not come to man oppressively but commensurately with a man's power of receiving him."82 This very important rabbinic insight meant that God could not be described in a formula as though he were the same for everybody: he was an essentially subjective experience. Each individual would experience the reality of "God" in a different way to answer the needs of his or her own particular temperament.

People would continue to adopt a particular conception of the divine because it worked for them, not because it was scientifically or philosophically sound.

The rationalism of Plato and Aristotle is also important because Jews, Christians and Muslims all drew upon their ideas and tried to adapt them to their own religious experience, even though the Greek God was very different from their own.

our version of the same event is also likely to be a reflection upon our own situation and suffering rather than a dispassionate and wholly factual account. We

The silence in mysticism is alien. People want to do a few courses in mysticism, rather like the way you do French before going on holiday, and emerge a mystic. Mysticism isn't like that.

Perhaps the central paradox of the religious life is that it seeks transcendence, a dimension of existence that goes beyond our mundane lives, but that human beings can only experience this transcendent reality in earthly, physical phenomena.

Sì, pensavo io, la sua vita è di quelle che bisogna vivere due volte prima di poter dire che è stata veramente vissuta. Si può ripetere da capo un'arietta, ma non una composizione intera, una sinfonia e neanche una tragedia in cinque atti. Se la si ripete, vuol dire che non è andata come doveva.

Things are happening to you, and you feel them happening, but except for this one fact, you have no connection with them, and no key to the cause or meaning of them.

Språket mangler ord for alt man ser og opplever når man flyr. Med tiden kommer man til å finne nye ord for disse inntrykkene.

I was a married woman! she said. Why does every generation believe it is the discoverer of pleasure? Your father was a spectacular lover. Even through the wall, I could hear the triumph in her voice.

we are all wont to make mistakes, but if we learn from each trick, each error, and refuse to allow it to happen again, then the experience is not a loss, but a lifelong gain. Our pride may sting for the moment, but our future will be the better for it.

Gregor, have you ever been in love? No, I've never been that foolish.

When it's a memory, you already know the outcome, so we believe it was an easier time.

No matter what station you hold in life, there will always be things that will surprise you. Whether you choose to be outraged or delighted is up to you.

Life was a hard teacher, but a thorough one.

I'm surprised that, with all of his supposed experience with the gentler sex, he doesn't realize that women do not like to be carried in a way that musses their hair and leaves them with unattractively red faces.

People who really live have a little wear and tear. But that's good. It's what makes us interesting.