Quotes About Enlightenment

The ongoing argument over whether the Enlightenment is a good thing is hardly a new facet of American political life.

I had to be - I was in school for probably three or four years before I began taking courses in history and political science, and I just started to realize how big the world was. I mean, when I arrived in college, I didn't know anything.

I would be a poorer person if the only things I knew were what I had found out for myself.

What we need more than anything else is an informed populace. I believe people want to be informed.

When the entire population of the world attains enlightenment, I'll retire and play golf every day.

There is perhaps not an enlightened Christian in America who, notwithstanding he may believe that, at the time of Jesus, men were possessed of devils, believes that they ever have been in any other instance, either before or since.

I would say I'm a 19th-century liberal, possibly even an 18th-century one.

Jesus was a human being who, while on Earth, completely self-actualized and fulfilled in all ways the potential glory that lies within us all.

We're not earthly beings any more... we're cosmic beings.

To a Buddhist, contradictions only exist in a mind that has been forced to cultivate them.

I never dreamt, in my dream, I'm Dalai Lama.

I've got a letter from the Dalai Lama at home.

Before anything else, we need a new age of Enlightenment. Our present political systems must relinquish their claims on truth, justice and freedom and have to replace them with the search for truth, justice, freedom and reason.

The connections I draw between human nature and political systems in my new book, for example, were prefigured in the debates during the Enlightenment and during the framing of the American Constitution.

Reading is an act of civilization; it's one of the greatest acts of civilization because it takes the free raw material of the mind and builds castles of possibilities.

Faith in God is the gift that takes us beyond our limited self, with all its incessant demands. It opens us to a life that stretches us, enlightens us, and often springs surprises upon us. Such faith, like love, sees that which is invisible and lives by it.

Mother Earth is very talented. She has produced Buddhas, bodhisattvas, great beings.

Do your bit to save humanity from lapsing back into barbarity by reading all the novels you can.

Darkness is a definite experience of prayer. It is to be expected, even embraced.

Everyone in California is a Buddhist for fifteen minutes. Then they realize they're not allowed to eat chili dogs and enlightenment starts sounding like a real drag.

There once was a time when all people believed in God and the church ruled. This time was called the Dark Ages.

The man who enters Cosmic Consciousness is really a new creature, and all his surroundings "become new" - take on a new face and meaning.

You have given me a thing I could never have imagined, before I knew you. It's like I had the word "book," and you put one in my hands. I had the world "game," and you taught me how to play. I had the word "life," and then you came along and said, "Oh! You mean this.

Before the truth sets you free, it tends to make you miserable.