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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.

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
Way
Sufi
Described
Burned
Hearing
Ways
Fire
Seeing
Three
Sufis

More quotes by 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.
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Most of the book deals with things we already know yet never learn.
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Swallow your pride and admit that we all need help at times.
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What is sickness? What is health? Both are distractions. Put them both aside and go forward.
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As human beings we are made to surpass ourselves and are truly ourselves only when transcending ourselves.
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I'm not a chauvinist. I'm a universalist. I think that God imploded, like a spiritual big bang, to launch the eight civilizations that make up recorded history and the religions in those civilizations.
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So always, if we look back, concern for face-to-face morality, and its modern emphasis on justice as well, have historically evolved as religious issues.
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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 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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It would be good if we bore one another's burdens.
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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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Daily the world grows smaller, leaving understanding the only place where peace can find a home.
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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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Built into human makeup is a longing for a 'more' that the world of everyday experience cannot requite.
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In nature, the emphasis is in what is rather than what ought to be.
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...but with my clamoring ego solidly in place, I considered the title, 'Memories of a Failed Nobody'.
Huston Smith
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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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...the single destination of sanctity could admit of so many different avenues leading to it.
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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We are free when we are not the slave of our impulses, but rather their master. Taking inward distance, we thus become the authors of our own dramas rather than characters in them.
Huston Smith