Quotes About Temples

Um novo Deus chegou a Vakhar. A morte expulsou os deuses menores e ocupou todos os espaços vazios de seus templos. Os hinos viraram gritos. A música, tiroteio. As preces, gargantas sufocando, cheias de sangue. Eu e o Balcã somos missionários. Nossas oferendas transbordam.

And just as it is common to hear how, when one is in love, anything one sees reminds one of that love—our feelings remake the world in a secular equivalent of the faith that sees the hand of God in everything—so I began to find that when one is thinking on a theme, everything seems to reflect on it. Suddenly, everything I saw or read, in this girlish city of temples, seemed to take me back to the theme of the lady and the monk.

But all habitude is produced through imitation and similitude; and hence temples imitate the heavens, but altars the earth; statues resemble life, and on this account they are similar to animals; and prayers imitate that which is intellectual; but characters, superior ineffable powers; herbs and stones resemble matter; and animals which are sacrificed, the irrational life of our souls.

Temples are no longer known. It is we who secretly save up these extravagances of the heart. Where one of them still survives, a Thing that was formerly prayed to, worshipped, knelt before-- just as it is, it passes into the invisible world. Many no longer perceive it, yet miss the chance to build it inside themselves now, with pillars and statues: greater.

Yet the great "Why?" always at the center of the little "whats" and "hows" that makes religions into mythologies is often stronger in dead temples than in living.

Thus the legal ruling that defined Hinduism by its tolerance and inclusivism was actually inspired by the desire of certain Hindus to exclude other Hindus from their temples.

The history of Temples teaches us that the people of God have been strong, or weak, in proportion to the faithfulness with which they have attended to their sanctuaries.

if a tiny percentage of the wealth stored in India's temples had been spent on defence or war preparations, invasions would have been deterred or repulsed, and resources saved. Preparation for war is sound economics: this is a thesis offered in the Swami's Gita book.

Religion is too often the pretext for war, hatred, intolerance among different faiths, and competitive piety within faiths. But the problem isn't with faith, or even with difference in faith, within the churches, synagogues, temples, and mosques. The problem is the overachievers in those institutions.

At its purest, Jainism is almost an atheistic religion, and the much venerated images of the Tirthankaras in temples represent not so much a divine presence as a profound divine absence. I

Hindu civilisation is the only great classical culture to survive intact from the ancient world, and at temples such as Madurai one can still catch glimpses of festivals and practices that were seen by Greek visitors to India long before the rise of ancient Rome. Indeed, it is only when you grasp the astonishing antiquity, and continuity, of Hinduism that you realise quite how miraculous is survival has been.

Mesopotamian cities identified closely with their deities, and their temples functioned as the main social and economic engines. The king served as the intermediary between the city and its deity, and his palace operated side by side with the temple. Both palace and temple commanded the key function in any society: the production and distribution of food.

Temples were established, and with them new sorts of clothing, new dairy products, wines and woollens were disseminated to local populations. While these products might not have been entirely novel, what the temples introduced was the principle of standardization: urban temple-factories were literally outputting products in uniform packages, with the houses of the gods guaranteeing purity and quality control.

between 321 and 300 B.C., recommended that ambassadors use cryptanalysis to obtain intelligence: "If there is no possibility of carrying on any such conversation (conversation with the people regarding their loyalty), he [the envoy] may try to gather such information by observing the talk of beggars, intoxicated and insane persons, or of persons babbling in sleep, or by observing the signs made in places of pilgrimage and temples, or by deciphering paintings or secret writings.

The all-important and crowning blessings of membership in the Church are those blessings which we receive in the temples of God

To reject the necessity of temples is to reject the necessity of God, religion and earthly existence.

So many creeds like the weeds in the sod - so many temples, and only one God.

Among all nations there should be vast temples raised where people might worship in silence and listen to it, for it is the voice of God

History is nothing but a procession of false Absolutes, a series of temples raised to pretexts, a degradation of the mind before the Improbable.

Venice, it's temples and palaces did seem like fabrics of enchantment piled to heaven.

Why from the plain truth should I shrink? In woods men feel; in towns they think. Yet, which is best? Thought, stumbling, plods Past fallen temples, vanished gods, Altars unincensed, fanes undecked, Eternal systems flown or wrecked; Through trackless centuries that grant To the poor trudge refreshment scant, Age after age, pants on to find A melting mirage of the mind. But feeling never wanders far, Content to fare with things that are.

Although the dominant pattern here was one of looting and carrying off the images of state deities, we also hear of Hindu kings destroying their enemies' temples.

If airports can be seen as temples to travel, gateways to other worlds, then airport carpets are the vast prayer mats upon which we all genuflect.

This City now doth like a garment wear The beauty of the morning; silent, bare, Ships, towers, domes, theatres and temples lie Open unto the fields and to the sky; All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.