Quotes About Spiritual

I don't profess any religion; I don't think it's possible that there is a God; I have the greatest difficulty in understanding what is meant by the words 'spiritual' or 'spirituality.' [ Interview, The New Yorker, Dec. 26, 2005 ]

The faith instinct…simply cannot be killed. That 'simply cannot' means that we simply cannot not live—cannot live as if life were meaningless, without purpose; as if life were merely material or mechanical or not spiritual. Such an effort in its deadly futility represents a historical ending time, a time just before the faith instinct will show itself again.

Everything found in this world must have its counterpart in the worlds above. Kabbalists have a phrase to describe this process: As above, so below. Our world is the seeable, touchable, hearable, smellable, and tastable form of all the hidden spiritual worlds. There is nothing in our physical world that does not come from the worlds above. Kabbalah tells us that everything we see in this world is only a reflection, an approximation, a clue, to something beyond outward appearances.

It is also true, however, that "Egypt" is an internal state of being that we must pass through to achieve freedom and transformation.

Far from breaking with tradition, they understood the Great War and its aftermath in the light of tradition, believing, as did their literary and spiritual ancestors, that ours is a fallen world yet not a forsaken one.

Williams was complex and tortured. He was not a saint but had his saintly side, which came and went, radiant and sincere as long as it lasted.

Aikido is budo. The goal of aikido is the development of personal, social, and spiritual awareness, responsibility, and accountability through the discipline and practice of a martial art. Aikido, empty-handed and with weapons, is the training of the heart and mind for self-defense, if necessary, and for physical conditioning.

I needed to learn the wisdom of my body and my heart, not just the wisdom of my mind. […] My body was not just some biological machine designed to carry my consciousness around. I was beginning to understand that, contrary to a culture which called the body sinful, it had intrinsic value, intelligence, and spiritual wisdom to offer me, if I would honor it.

Writing is a deeply spiritual act that can have a profound effect upon the practitioner.

I have often had apparitions of hosts of serpents with heads at their tails, but not one was able to bite me; and many other visions.

What is attained by a developed thinking is not visions but spiritual sight of realities; what is attained by a developed will is not ordinary soul-experiences but the discovery of a consciousness different from the ordinary.

What the spiritual investigator has to do to acquire the faculty of looking into the spiritual world consists exclusively of processes of spirit and soul; they have nothing to do with changes in the body, nor with visions arising from an abnormal bodily life.

My earlier books, 'The Oath,' 'This Present Darkness' were pretty straight adventure. 'The Visitation' is like a deeper book, more thought-provoking. It probes at character more.

I am a spiritual person. I'm a Catholic. I treat my patients, the dead patients, as live patients. I believe there is life after death. And I talk to my patients. I talk to them, not loudly but quietly in my heart when I look at them. Before I do an autopsy, I must have a visual contact with the face.

I write about art out of gratitude to painters for the joy and spiritual uplift they have given me. Painters interpret for us the visual glories of God and, in this way, bring us closer to Him.

By definition, chaplains minister to the spiritual needs of our men and women in armed services, a vital function that an individual without any inclination toward spirituality would not be able to perform.

I was raised with the idea that the arts were a doss - but the arts are vital. If you see Mark Rylance perform Shakespeare at the Globe, you know it's a spiritual act.

The idea of a spiritual heart transplant is a vivid image to me; once you have the heart of somebody else inside you, then that heart is there. Jesus' heart is inside me, and my heart is gone. So if God were to place a stethoscope against my chest, he would hear the heart of Jesus Christ beating.

It's critical that we use a very dark brush to paint evil. When you bring the light into that darkness as characterized in John 1, that light is very vivid. When it dispels the darkness, we see the brilliance that's there.

Indeed, artists, particularly modern artists, have intentionally limited the scope and vocabulary of their expression to convey, as Mark Rothko and Ad Reinhardt do, the most essential, even spiritual, ideas of their art.

Conscience is the authentic voice of God to you.

The battle between free will and listening to the inner voice will remain eternal. Similarly, in the debate over material and spiritual rewards; you cannot have both, as the path to acquire each is different.

Music is the harmonious voice of creation; an echo of the invisible world.

Otis Redding, his voice, there was something spiritual and unworldly and at the same time, very deeply connected with the human connection and the way one feels about life in general, love, life, and everything, really.