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As known unknowns become known unknown unknowns proliferate the larger the island of knowledge, the longer the shoreline of wonder.

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
Longer
Wonder
Proliferate
Known
Unknowns
Knowledge
Shoreline
Become
Island
Islands
Larger
Unknown

More quotes by Huston Smith

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Walnuts have a shell, and they have a kernel. Religions are the same. They have an essence, but then they have a protective coating. This is not the only way to put it. But it's my way. So the kernels are the same. However, the shells are different.
Huston Smith
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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.
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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Entheogens are not to be lightly trifled with... However, if taken with the right attitude and in the proper setting, psychoactive drugs may produce religious experiences. ...it is far less clear that they can produce religious lives.
Huston Smith
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If human life is to survive on this planet, the old dualistic worldview, with people on one side and the environment on the other, must yield to a new vision that connects us with everything else and leads us to care for and take responsibility for it.
Huston Smith
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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.
Huston Smith
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What is sickness? What is health? Both are distractions. Put them both aside and go forward.
Huston Smith
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God is defined by Jesus but not confined to Jesus.
Huston Smith
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...the only thing that continues is the consequences of our action.
Huston Smith
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The first koan do not have rational answers. They are techniques devised over the millennia for triggering an actual experience.
Huston Smith
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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.
Huston Smith
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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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After his great awakening, the Buddha continued to meditate and to devote himself to others otherwise his vision would have receded into a pleasant memory.
Huston Smith
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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.
Huston Smith
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I think it matters almost infinitely that we practice one of the authentic religions. But if you mean does it make any difference which. The answer is no, as long as each is followed with equal intensity, sincerity, dedication.
Huston Smith
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Most of the book deals with things we already know yet never learn.
Huston Smith
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Institutions are not pretty. Show me a pretty government. Healing is wonderful, but the American Medical Association? Learning is wonderful, but universities? The same is true for religion... religion is institutionalized spirituality.
Huston Smith
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In nature, the emphasis is in what is rather than what ought to be.
Huston Smith
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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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I've spent the last 50 years or so steeping myself in the world's religions, and I've done my homework. I've gone to each of the world's eight great religions and sought out the most profound scholars I could find, and I've apprenticed myself to them and actually practiced each faith.
Huston Smith