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It has been estimated that one third of our Western civilization bears the mark of its Jewish ancestry.

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
Thirds
Western
Mark
Bears
Civilization
Estimated
Ancestry
Jewish
Third

More quotes by Huston Smith

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Exclusively oral cultures are unencumbered by dead knowledge, dead facts. Libraries, on the other hand, are full of them.
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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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Most of the book deals with things we already know yet never learn.
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It would be good if we bore one another's burdens.
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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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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
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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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The faith I was born into formed me.
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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 simply wanted to experience the presence of this man who had revolutionized my understanding. After a while we sat in silence, gazing at the barren canyon walls. And the mute desert seemed to carry on our conversation for us.
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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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Swami Ashokananda was a brilliant and accomplished spiritual teacher in the West.
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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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The goal of spiritual life is not altered states, but altered traits
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Practice giving things away, not just things you don't care about, but things you do like.
Huston Smith
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In order to live man must believe in that for which he lives.
Huston Smith
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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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I am profoundly moved and persuaded by the near-death experience.
Huston Smith
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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.
Huston Smith
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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.
Huston Smith