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If it is not tempered by compassion, and empathy, reason can lead men and women into a moral void.

Karen Armstrong

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Karen Armstrong
Age: 80
Born: 1944
Born: November 14
Author
Historian Of Religion
Islamicist
Theologian
University Teacher
Writer
Worcs
Compassion
Moral
Women
Reason
Men
Tempered
Void
Empathy
Lead

More quotes by Karen Armstrong

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Now I think one of the reasons why religion developed in the way that it did over the centuries was precisely to curb this murderous bent that we have as human beings.
Karen Armstrong
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And so, one of the reasons why I started my Charter for Compassion, was to bring the Golden Rule back to the center of religion and morality and not put other's secondary goals, less demand goals, into the forefront.
Karen Armstrong
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You have to get into the water and learn against what seems to be the law gravity to float and dancing, or athletics takes you years before you develop a skill. But if you work at it, practicing daily, you can enable your body to do things that are utterly impossible to an untrained physic.
Karen Armstrong
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Compassion is a practically acquired knowledge, like dancing. You must do it and practice diligently day by day.
Karen Armstrong
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I learned a lot from both, initially Jewish and Muslim theologians that had been missing, perhaps from my rather parochial Catholic upbringing.
Karen Armstrong
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I used to hate religion, I loathed it in my angry days.
Karen Armstrong
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Compassion doesn't, of course, mean feeling sorry for people, or pity, which is how the word has become emasculated in a way.
Karen Armstrong
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Today we often think that before we start living a religious life we have first to accept the creedal doctrines and that before one can have any comprehension of the loyalty and trust of faith, one must first force one's mind to accept a host of incomprehensible doctrines. But this is to put the cart before the horse.
Karen Armstrong
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Zionism was originally a rebellion against religious Judaism and the PLO Charter was essentially secularist. But because the conflict was allowed to fester without a resolution, religion got sucked into the escalating cycle of violence and became part of the problem.
Karen Armstrong
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You know how it is in the symphony when you are listening to the symphony, the last notes die away, and there's often a beat of silence in the auditorium before the applause begins. It's a very full and pregnant silence. Now theology should bring us to live into that silence, into that pregnant pause.
Karen Armstrong
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Yet a personal God can become a grave liability. He can be a mere idol carved in our own image, a projection of our limited needs, fears and desires. We can assume that he loves what we love and hates what we hate, endorsing our prejudices instead of compelling us to transcend them.
Karen Armstrong
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At the beginning of the twentieth century, every single leading Muslim intellectual was in love with the west, and wanted their countries to look just like Britain and France.
Karen Armstrong
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We are addicted to our egotism, our likes and dislikes and prejudices, and depend upon them for our own sense of identity.
Karen Armstrong
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There is a danger in monotheism, and it's called idolatry. And we know the prophets of Israel were very, very concerned about idolatry, the worship of a human expression of the divine.
Karen Armstrong
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[T]he family is a school of compassion because it is here that we learn to live with other people. (68)
Karen Armstrong
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Religion is not about accepting twenty impossible propositions before breakfast, but about doing things that change you. It is a moral aesthetic, an ethical alchemy. If you behave in a certain way, you will be transformed.
Karen Armstrong
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For centuries, the Muslims were able to co-exist perfectly well with Jews and Christians in the Middle East.
Karen Armstrong
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Storytelling is fine as long as you can encourage people to act on the stories.
Karen Armstrong
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Intelligence doesn't just mean tracking down terrorists It means finding out what is in people's hearts and minds and discovering the complexity of most issues.
Karen Armstrong
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Geniuses are not always pleasant people.
Karen Armstrong