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A nation can assume that the addition of the words under God to its pledge of allegiance gives evidence that its citizens actually believe in God whereas all it really proves is that they believe in believing in God

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
Believe
Prove
Addition
Really
Citizens
Allegiance
Nation
Pledge
Gives
Whereas
Nations
Assume
Actually
Believing
Words
Assuming
Giving
Evidence
Proves

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First of all, my persuasion is what really breeds violence is political differences. But because religion serves as the soul of community, it gets drawn into the fracas and turns up the heat.
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The Sufis say there are three ways to know fire - by hearing it described, by seeing it, or by being burned.
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If you are drilling for water, it's better to drill one 60-foot well than 10 6-foot wells.
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Practice giving things away, not just things you don't care about, but things you do like.
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In nature, the emphasis is in what is rather than what ought to be.
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...the single destination of sanctity could admit of so many different avenues leading to it.
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It must have been providence that directed Joel Morwood to dig in the right place, for he struck a lode of pure gold, as wide (comprehensive) as it is deep (profound). What he mined from that lode is a spiritual treasure.
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My body was born into the - baptized in the Methodist church, and it will be buried in the Methodist Church. Meanwhile, I have a soul. And my soul cannot be confined to any human institution.
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Rationalism and Newtonian science has lured us into dark woods, but a new metaphysics can rescue us.
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It would be good if we bore one another's burdens.
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We all carry it within us: supreme strength, the fullness of wisdom, unquenchable joy. It is never thwarted, and cannot be destroyed.
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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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The notion that Western religions are more rigid than those of Asia is overdrawn. Ours is the most permissive society history has ever known - almost the only thing that is forbidden now is to forbid - and Asian teachers and their progeny play up to this propensity by soft-pedaling Hinduism's, Buddhism's, Sufism's rules.
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Most of the book deals with things we already know yet never learn.
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The crisis that the world finds itself in as it swings on the hinge of a new millennium is located in something deeper than particular ways of organizing political systems and economies.
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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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What is Zen? Simple, simple, so simple. Infinite gratitude toward all things past infinite service to all things present infinite responsibility to all things future.
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...like a magnetic compass turning north, I always tried to head in the direction of the better, which is the direction to God. ...the directions that appeared to lead away from Christianity led me deeper into it.
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Science can prove nothing about God, because God lies outside its province.
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With mind distracted, never thinking, Death is coming, To slave away on the pointless business of mundane life, And then to come out empty--it is a tragic error. (116) trans by Robert Thurman
Huston Smith