Quotes About Spirituality

You can be active in a church but inactive in its gospel.

The great reformer Martin Luther is quoted as saying, "I have so much to do today, I'll need to spend another hour on my knees.

Nietzsche: "He who has a 'why' can live with any 'what.'" Dr. Frankl hypothesized that we have three parts to our nature: our body, our mind, and our spirit. But his deepest conviction is that most—not all—diseases originate in the spirit. That is, in a sense of meaninglessness, a sense of hollowness, a sense of purposelessness. No mission. No vision.

Look to yourself. Be honest with yourself first—the roots of your problems are spiritual, and so are the root solutions. Build your character and your relationships on the bedrock of principles.

Dr. Frankl hypothesized that we have three parts to our nature: our body, our mind, and our spirit. But his deepest conviction is that most—not all—diseases originate in the spirit. That is, in a sense of meaninglessness, a sense of hollowness, a sense of purposelessness. No mission. No vision. No future.

Even prophets and madmen require sustenance.

It is not necessary to believe in God to be a good person. In a way, the traditional notion of God is outdated. One can be spiritual, but not religious. It is not necessary to go to church and give money. For many, nature can be a church. Some of the best people in history did not believe in God, while some of the worst deeds were done in his name. —POPE FRANCIS I

if the faithful stop believing in dogma, stop relying on the church for absolute guidance, then it is all over.

To keep people dependent on the church for their entire lifetime, create more sacraments.

forgiveness, of course, coming only from one source. The church.

Religion seemed the last vestige of man's intellectual infancy.

Not being changed by prayer is sort of life standing in the middle of a spring rain without getting wet. It's hard to stand in the center of God's acceptance and love without getting it all over you.

The only people who get better are people who know that, if they never get better, God will love them anyway.

If you've been a Christian very long, you may be wondering why I left out the guilt, the condemnation, and the promises to get better and better in every way, every day. I left them out because they simply aren't in the Bible.

Until a Christian struggles with the issue of freedom, he or she will remain frightened, obsessive, and bound.

Whenever a new Christian comes into the church, I wince a bit, because I'm afraid that they will get the "religion disease," that the "church virus" will kill off the joy and freedom Jesus purchased on the cross to give them.

God will not only love you if you don't get better; he will teach you that getting better isn't the issue. His love is the issue.

Jesus invited us to a dance … and we've turned it into a march of soldiers, always checking to see if we're doing it right and are in step and in line with the other soldiers. We know a dance would be more fun, but we believe we must go through hell to get to heaven, so we keep marching.

People living deeply," wrote poet and diarist Anaïs Nin, "have no fear of death.

L]iberation [doesn't occur] in wearing robes or performing ritual acts.

Buddhist writings (including this book) can be likened to a raft. A raft is a very handy thing to carry you across the water, from one shore to another. But once you've reached the other shore, you no longer need the raft. Indeed, if you wish to continue your journey beyond the shore, you must leave the raft behind. Our problem is that we tend to fall in love with the raft.

One day, soon after the Buddha's enlightenment, a man saw the Buddha walking toward him. The man had not heard of the Buddha, but he could see that there was something different about the man who was approaching, so he was moved to ask, "Are you a god?

The evangelical wing of the Church spends a lot of energy on being born again but little time on growing up again. There is a failing to encourage newborn believers out of the maternity ward and into a big world where they will spend the rest of their spiritual lives trying to find what they are looking for.

The heartfelt realization of one's insignificance yields a calming sense of being completely connected to the greater whole. As a tiny part of the world and humanity, I now feel more at peace and much larger than I ever felt as a man alone.