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SPIRITUALITY QUOTES

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* The interdependency of humankind, the relevance of relationship, the sacredness of creation is ancient, ancient wisdom.
-- Rebecca Adamson

* The indigenous understanding has its basis of spirituality in a recognition of the interconnectedness and interdependence of all living things, a holistic and balanced view of the world. All things are bound together. All things connect. What happens to the Earth happens to the children of the earth. Humankind has not woven the web of life; we are but one thread. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves.
-- Rebecca Adamson

* “Ethical religion can be real only to those who are engaged in ceaseless efforts at moral improvement. By moving upward we acquire faith in an upward movement, without limit.”
-- Felix Adler

* The essence of spirituality is the duty to live to its full the glorious destiny of being human. The purpose of religion should be to empower all people in this adventure of living with dignity and fulfillment.
-- Swami Agnivesh

the religions of the world must be assessed, not on the basis of their convoluted theologies, but in terms of the extent to which they serve as forces of liberation and empowerment.
-- Swami Agnivesh


Spiritually, life is a festival, a celebration. Joy is of the essence of life;
-- Swami Agnivesh

...all human beings have a right, and duty, to be joyful. Anything that thwarts this spiritual human right goes against the very purpose of human being. Spirituality mandates us to wage a relentless war to eradicate these forces of oppression and disempowerment.
-- Swami Agnivesh

First, we must liberate people from religion, as religion is understood and practiced today. Second, we must effect a paradigm shift from religiosity to shared spirituality.
-- Swami Agnivesh

Peace among religions is a precondition for world peace. But religions, as religions, can never be at peace with each other. To enable religions to be instruments for peace we need to enable, first, religious communities to progress from religion to spirituality. For the world order to be one of peace and justice, for the global village to be a theater of right livelihood, it is imperative that a new and proactive spiritual vision commensurate to the challenges of the emerging world order be enunciated without delay. The challenge is to make “right livelihood” a universal goal. Recognizing this value in a symbolic way through an award like this is a significant step in the right direction. This is not, however, our journey’s end. We must not rest until right livelihood is within reach of every human being upon this earth we love and cherish. We all have a role to play in achieving this goal.
-- Swami Agnivesh

Every Day is an opportunity for all who value spirituality in their lives to connect and unite in our wish for a more peaceful, just and sustainable world based on values grounded in our deeper spiritual connection to each other and the world around us.
-- Robert Alan Silverstein

* I think people are genuinely seeking spirituality. There's a simple reason for this. In the midst of the daily grind of life, it's easy to forget we have a spirit, and we can get depressed, even sick. We are spirits as well as bodies, and spirits need nourishment.
-- Bill Ayres

We are on the planet to... wrap our consciousness around the divine treasure within us...
-- Rev Michael Beckwith

"This is a deeply spiritual issue...Do we want to spend more time trying to care for our fellow man or do we want to just pursue more virtual reality? That's the issue before us.. and it's being played out in the world of the environment."
~ Ed Begley, Jr.

* "Spirituality is that attitude which puts life at the center, and defends and promotes life against all the mechanisms of death, desiccation, or stagnation.
-- Leonardo Boff

"Spirituality is that attitude which puts life at the center, and defends and promotes life against all the mechanisms of death, desiccation, or stagnation. The opposite of spirit, in this sense, is not the body but death and everything associated with the system of death, understood in the widest sense of biological, social, and existential death (failure, humiliation, and oppression). Nourishing spirituality means cultivating the inward space, the basis of which all things can be brought together. It means overwhelming deadness and stagnation and living reality in terms of values, inspiration, and symbols of higher meaning. The spiritual person is one who is always in a position to see the other side of reality, and who is always capable of perceiving that profundity by which we are referred to the Ultimate Reality that religions call God.
-- Leonardo Boff

* To be a soulful person means to go against all the pervasive, prove-yourself values of our culture and instead treasure what is unique and internal and valuable in yourself and your own personal evolution.
~ Jean Shinoda Bolen

"I believe that the thought that women together can change the world is emerging into the minds and hearts of many of us, and that the vessel for personal and planetary evolution is the circle with a spiritual center."
~ Jean Shinoda Bolen

* “If you do a good job for others, you heal yourself at the same time, because a dose of joy is a spiritual cure.”
-- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

* …the voice of the Great Spirit is heard in the twittering of birds, the rippling of mighty waters, and the sweet breathing of flowers...
-- Gertrude Bonnin (Zitkala-Sa)

* In his scientific genius, man has wrought material miracles and has transformed his world. He has harnassed nature and has developed great civilizations. But he has never learned very well how to live with himself. The values he has created have been predominantly materialistic; his spiritual values have lagged far behind. He has demonstrated little spiritual genius and has made little progress toward the realization of human brotherhood. In the contemporary atomic age, this could prove man's fatal weakness.
-- Ralph J. Bunche

* Spiritually, no action is more important than surrender. Surrender is the tenderest impulse of the heart, acting out of love to give whatever the beloved wants. Surrender is being alert to exactly what is happening now, not imposing expectations from the past. Surrender is faith that the power of love can accomplish anything, even when you cannot foresee the outcome of a situation.
-- Deepak Chopra

* Whenever a human being ceases to live for themselves and begins to care about that which is greater than themselves, the personality begins to experience ecstasy, joy and spontaneous liberation. And that's found through doing, through action, through giving, through deeply embracing the human experience.
-- Andrew Cohen

It seems to rise again when the crisis times come, and this is a time of most severe crisis, as we all know, not just for the history of the United States and the survival indeed of our democracy, but for the future peace of the world. And never before probably has the need for interfaith commitment been nearly as great as it is at this very moment.
-- Walter Cronkite

The fact that you are here tonight gathered together with us testifies to the fact you understand the need for this organization and the need for redoubling our efforts in this organization to try to assure that democracy as represented by the United States must depend upon a total freedom of religion, which is written into our Constitution, of course, and the mere suggestion that anyone could maintain that one’s patriotism, one’s devotion to one’s country can be judged by one’s religion is so vile, so vile that we have to take to the streets indeed and to put it aside.
-- Walter Cronkite

* "My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness."
- The Dalai Lama

* I appreciate any organization or individual people who sincerely make an effort to promote harmony between humanity, and particularly harmony between the various religions. I consider it very sacred work and very important work
- The Dalai Lama

The problems we face today, violent conflicts, destruction of nature, poverty, hunger and so on, are human-created problems which can be resolved through human effort, understanding and the development of a sense of brotherhood and sisterhood. We need to cultivate a universal responsibility for one another and the planet we share.
- The Dalai Lama

"What we would like to do is change the world-make it a little simpler for people to feed, clothe, and shelter themselves as God intended for them to do. And, by fighting for better conditions, by crying out unceasingly for the rights of the workers, of the poor, of the destitute…we can, to a certain extent, change the world; we can work for the oasis, the little cell of joy and peace in a harried world. We can throw our pebble in the pond and be confident that its ever widening circle will reach around the world. We repeat, there is nothing that we can do but love, and, dear God, please enlarge our hearts to love each other, to love our neighbor, to love our enemy as well as our friend."
-- Dorothy Day

"Whenever I groan within myself and think how hard it is to keep writing about love in these times of tension and strife which may, at any moment, become for us all a time of terror, I think to myself: What else is the world interested in? What else do we all want, each one of us, except to love and be loved, in our families, in our work, in all our relationships? God is Love. Love casts out fear. Even the most ardent revolutionist, seeking to change the world, to overturn the tables of the money changers, is trying to make a world where it is easier for people to love, to stand in that relationship to each other…There can never be enough of it."
-- Dorothy Day

Spirituality Quotes

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(Click on * for 8.5 X 11 PDF to print)

 

Interfaith Day - June 22

Spirituality Day - December 31

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