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When there are miles to go before we sleep, altered traits are more important than altered states.

Huston Smith

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Huston Smith
Age: 97 †
Born: 1919
Born: May 31
Died: 2016
Died: December 30
Philosopher
Professor
Soochow
Huston Cummings Smith
Sleep
States
Important
Altered
Traits
Miles

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...but with my clamoring ego solidly in place, I considered the title, 'Memories of a Failed Nobody'.
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Not only is the destiny of the individual bound up with the entire Church it is responsible for helping to sanctify the entire world of nature and history.
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God has to speak to each person in their own language, in their own idioms. Take Spanish, Chinese. You can express the same thought, but to different people you have to use a different language. Its the same in religion.
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I have a body and I have a soul. And my body belongs to the faith - in fact, the church - into which it was born, the Methodist Church.
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God is defined by Jesus but not confined to Jesus.
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The goal of spiritual life is not altered states, but altered traits
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It would be good if we bore one another's burdens.
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As known unknowns become known unknown unknowns proliferate the larger the island of knowledge, the longer the shoreline of wonder.
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Imagine a man besottedly in love: he won't waste time speculating whether other women equally merit his affection.
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It has been estimated that one third of our Western civilization bears the mark of its Jewish ancestry.
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I had assumed that Bush's seemingly inflexible policy to support Sharon was for political reasons of his getting elected. But as to whether he really believes his actions are going to hasten the day of the final conflict, I do not know.
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In mysteries what we know, and our realization of what we do not know, proceed together the larger the island of knowledge, the longer the shoreline of wonder. It is like the quantum world, where the more we understand its formalism, the stranger that world becomes.
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I would not say that ethical behavior is not possible for the atheist or agnostic. It is. A couple of pretty good examples are Bertrand Russell and Jean-Paul Sartre. However, I will have to say that if we take the human lot as a whole, these two men must be seen as exceptions.
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Most of the book deals with things we already know yet never learn.
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We become compassionate not from altruism which denies the self for the sake of the other, but from the insight that sees and feels one is the other.
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The object of pilgrimage is not rest and recreation – to get away from it all. To set out on a pilgrimage is to throw down a challenge to everyday life.
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Human intelligence is a reflection of the intelligence that produces everything. In knowing, we are simply extending the intelligence that comes to and constitutes us. We mimic the mind of God, so to speak. Or better, we continue and extend it.
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What is sickness? What is health? Both are distractions. Put them both aside and go forward.
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The faith I was born into formed me.
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Built into human makeup is a longing for a 'more' that the world of everyday experience cannot requite.
Huston Smith