Quotessence
Home / Authors / Karen Armstrong
Karen Armstrong

Karen Armstrong Quotes

Author

Filter quotes by topic

AllCompassionWorldPeopleHumansIfsWayReligiousMindIslamReligionChristianGivingThinkingMadeMythSelfIdeasRealityWantHuman Beings

Famous Karen Armstrong Quotes

“Religions have found that if you behave in a certain way, if you sort of perform certain rituals that expand your mind and make you realize that will make you realize and help you to seguey into transcendence and perform certain acts, adopt a certain lifestyle, you develop new capacities of mind and heart, just like the dancer, or the athlete that make you into a whole human being and principle after one of these disciplines right across the board in all of the faiths is compassion, the ability to feel with the other person.”

IfsWayFeelsMindHumansHeartPersonsWholeHelpingCertainFoundRealizingHuman BeingsAbilityCompassionPrinciplesDisciplineCapacityAthleteLifestyleBehaveBoardsDancerRitualHeart And MindTranscendence
Author:Karen Armstrong
Create image

“The more aggressive our ideologies become, the more aggressive our discourse whether it's in the United States, from Washington D.C., or whether it's from Tehran, or from some underground Al-Qaeda cell. The more aggressive that discourse is, the more people of moderate persuasion have to organize and speak a voice of compassion. That means to feel with the other.”

PeopleFeelsMeanStatesSpeakVoiceUnitedCompassionUnited StatesIdeologyCellsAlsAggressiveOrganizeDiscoursePersuasionModeratesAl QaedaTehran
Author:Karen Armstrong
Create image

“If your understanding of the divine made you kinder, more empathetic, and impelled you to express sympathy in concrete acts of loving-kindness, this was good theology. But if your notion of God made you unkind, belligerent, cruel, of self-righteous, or if it led you to kill in God's name, it was bad theology.”

IfsLoveMadeSelfGodReligionNamesUnderstandingDifferencesCompassionKindnessDivineEmpathyNotionKillingTheologySympathyRighteousConcreteUnkindKinderSelf RighteousLoving KindnessEmpatheticUnkindnessBelligerence
Book:The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness
Create image

“Compassion has been advocated by all the great faiths because it has been found to be the safest and surest means of attaining enlightenment. It dethrones the ego from the center of our lives and puts others there, breaking down the carapace of the selfishness that holds us back from an experience of the sacred. And it gives us ecstasy, broadening our perspectives and giving us a larger, enhanced vision.”

GivingMeanHas BeensFoundCompassionVisionOur LivesPerspectiveEgoEnlightenmentSacredSelfishnessEcstasyBreaking DownGreat Faith
Book:The Spiral Staircase
Create image

“Western liberal humanism is not something that comes naturally to us: like an appreciation of art or poetry, it has to be cultivated. Humanism is itself a religion without God-not all religions, of course, are theistic. Our ethical secular ideal has it's own disciplines of mind and heart and gives people the means of finding faith in the ultimate meaning of human life that were once provided by the more conventional religions.”

PeopleGivingMindHumansHeartMeanArtCoursesCompassionDisciplineFindingsEthicsIdealsUltimateWesternHumanismAppreciationHuman LifeEthicalConventionalSecularHeart And MindWithout God
Author:Karen Armstrong
Create image