Quotes & Sayings About Sacred Places

Cosca smiled up at the dragon, hands on hips. 'It certainly is a remarkable curiosity. A magnificent relic. But against what is already boiling across the plains? The legion of the dumb? The merchants and farmers and makers of trifles and filers of papers? The infinite tide of greedy little people?' He waved his hat towards the dragon. 'Such things as this are worthless as a cow against a swarm of ants. There will be no place in the world to come for the magical, the mysterious, the strange. They will come to your sacred places and build . . . tailors' shops. And dry-goods emporia. And lawyers' offices. They will make of them bland copies of everywhere else.' The old mercenary scratched thoughtfully at his rashy neck. 'You can wish it were not so. I wish it were not so. But it is so. I tire of lost causes. The time of men like me is passing. The time of men like you?' He wiped a little blood from under his fingernails. 'So long passed it might as well have never been. — Joe Abercrombie

What they say about a breakthrough is completely an illusion. They are sending their warplanes to fly very low in order to have vibrations on these sacred places. — Mohammed Saeed Al-Sahaf

I am a member of the Kiowa Gourd Dance Society; I visit sacred places such as Devil's Tower and the Medicine Wheel. These places are important to me, because they've been made sacred by sacrifice, by the investment of blood and experience and story. — N. Scott Momaday

For thousands of years, much of humankind has believed that only special places are infused with the sacred and that you must get away from the everyday in order to find it. Not so, everything is infused with the holy
from chairs to clothing to kitchen stoves. — Anthony Lawlor

The United States - you know, native people are large landowners, but the military has a huge chunk of our territories. And in those, there are a number of places that are our sacred sites. — Winona LaDuke

We live in a world of energy. An important task at this time is to learn to sense or see the energy of everyone and everything
people, plants, animals. This becomes increasingly important as we draw close to the World of the Fifth Sun, for it is associated with the element ether
the realm where energy lives and weaves. Go to the sacred places of the Earth to pray for peace, and have respect for the Earth which gives us our food, clothing, and shelter. We need to reactivate the energy of these sacred places. That is our work. — Carlos Barrios

It's odd how a piece of ground can hold so little of its meaning; though that's lucky, since for it to do so would make places sacred but impenetrable, whereas they're otherwise neither. — Richard Ford

Within my body are all the sacred places of the world, and the most profound pilgrimage I can ever make is within my own body. — Saraha

A true home is one of the most sacred of places. It is a sanctuary into which men flee from the world's perils and alarms. It is a resting-place to which at close of day the weary retire to gather new strength for the battle and toils of tomorrow. It is the place where love learns its lessons, where life is schooled into discipline and strength, where character is molded. — J.R. Miller

Right here in our bodies, in our defense of our right to experience joy, in the refusal to abandon the place where we have been most completely invaded & colonized, in our determination to make the bombed & defoliated lands flower again and bear fruit, here where we have been most shamed is one of the most radical & sacred places from which to transform the world. — Aurora Levins Morales

Here in this body are the sacred rivers, here are the sun and moon, as well as the pilgrimage places. I have not encountered another temple as blissful as my own body — Saraha

Even the West has known the architecture of empty space, whose object, for thousands of years, has been less to construct divine houses, than to create sacred places, to seize upon mystery and to immerse man in it-whether by raising the cyclopean pedestal that surrounds him with stars, or by hollowing out the sanctuary that wraps him in haunted night. — Andre Malraux

There are not sacred and profane things, places, and moments. There are only sacred and desecrated things, places, and moments-and it is we alone who desecrate them by our blindness and lack of reverence. It is one sacred universe, and we are all a part of it. — Richard Rohr

At the moment of death, the soul's impressions are similar to those of initiates in the ways of the Great Mysteries.
First they rush along blindly, twisting and turning, on an endless, anxious journey through the shadows.
Then, just before the end, their fear reaches its height. Bathed in cold sweat, they shiver and tremble, utterly terrified.
This phase is almost immediately followed by a return to the light, a sudden illumination.
They are surrounded by a marvelous glow and move through pure places and meadows ringing with voices and dancing.
Sacred words inspire religious respect. The perfect initiate is free to celebrate the Mysteries. — Bernard Werber

The heart is the hub of all sacred places. Go there and roam. — Bhagawan Nityananda

Surely there is grandeur in knowing that in the realm of thought, at least, you are without a chain; that you have the right to explore all heights and depth; that there are no walls nor fences, nor prohibited places, nor sacred corners in all the vast expanse of thought. — Robert Green Ingersoll

4Sing songs of praise to the name that belongs to the True God! Let your voices ring out in songs of praise to Him, the One who rides through the deserted places. His name is the Eternal; celebrate in His glorious presence. 5The True God who inhabits sacred space is a father to the fatherless, a defender of widows. 6He makes a home for those who are alone. — Anonymous

We need to walk to know sacred places, those around us and those within. We need to walk to remember the songs. — Joseph Bruchac

What an amazing and sacred place [Israel] to end the tour — Alanis Morissette

The world, this palpable world, which we were wont to treat with the boredom and disrespect with which we habitually regard places with no sacred association for us, is in truth a holy place, and we did not know it. Venite, adoremus. — Pierre Teilhard De Chardin

To encounter the sacred is to be alive at the deepest center of human existence. Sacred places are the truest definitions of the earth; they stand for the earth immediately and forever; they are its flags and shields. If you would know the earth for what it really is, learn it through its sacred places. At Devil's Tower or Canyon de Chelly or the Cahokia Mounds, you touch the pulse of the living planet; you feel its breath upon you. You become one with a spirit that pervades geologic time and space. — N. Scott Momaday

A sacred way of life connects us to the people and places around us. That means that a sacred economy must be in large part a local economy, in which we have multidimensional, personal relationships with the land and people who meet our needs, and whose needs are met in turn. — Juliana Birnbaum Fox

There are no sacred and unsacred places; there are only sacred and desecrated places. My belief is that the world and our life in it are conditional gifts. — Wendell Berry

Much of my writing has taken the form of a pilgrimage: to sacred places that represent the best of America, to musicians and other artists who represent the best of their art. — William Zinsser

Her skin is cold, and clammy; her eyes are the color of sky, on the grey, wet days that leach the world of color and meaning; her voice is little more than a whisper; and while she has no odor, her shadow smells mucky, and pungent, like the skin of a snake. Many years gone, a sect in what is now Afghanistan declared her a goddess, and proclaimed all empty rooms her sacred places. The sect, whose members called themselves The Unforgiven, persisted for two years, until its last adherent finally killed himself, having survived the other members by almost seven months. Despair says little, and is patient. — Neil Gaiman

The peace within and flowing from sacred spaces and architecture places is clothed in forgiveness, renunciation, and reconciliation. — Norris Brock Johnson

The temple is a place of holiness. It is the most sacred and holy place on earth and should be treated with the greatest degree of reverence and respect. — L. Lionel Kendrick

In the treaty were provisions for the hundred thousand veterans left maimed and irrevocably mute throughout the city. As is the way of things, their sacred places and comforts have dwindled to a lonely strip of shoreline and a polite nod whenever they are passed in the street. — Catherynne M Valente

Gods also remain important because of their functions. We can turn to places with relatively less religiosity to see why gods are so important everywhere else. In Sacred and Secular (2004), the political scientists Pippa Norris of Harvard and Ronald Inglehart of the University of Michigan show that, in prosperous regions where secular forms of social services and justice become really effective, religiosity dwindles. This inverse relationship between secular justice and economic equality and religious adherence suggests that the social functions of religion can be co-opted by secular institutions, thus rendering our obsession with what God knows and cares about more or less irrelevant. — Anonymous

We emerged out of nature, and when we die, we return to nature. We need to know there are forces impinging on us that we will never understand or control. We need to have sacred places where we go with respect, not just looking for resources or opportunity. — David Suzuki

On the other hand, with a sense of the sacred, one grows in understanding and
truth. The Holy Spirit becomes his frequent and then constant companion.
More and more he will stand in holy places and be entrusted with holy
things. Just the opposite of cynicism and despair, his end is eternal
life. — D. Todd Christofferson

I have travel to sacred places through the pages of books. — Lailah Gifty Akita

At every moment of his life the Shoshone must be careful to observe the complicated folkways of his group, to do reverence to superhuman powers, to remember the courtesies and obligations of family, to pay homage to certain sacred plants, or to avoid particular places. — Peter Farb

The Nazis knew they were doing wrong, so they hid everything; the Bolsheviks were convinced they were doing right, so they kept everything. Like it or not, you're a Russian historian, a searcher for lost souls, and in Russia the truth is always written not in ink, like in other places, but in innocent blood. These archives are as sacred as Golgotha. In the dry rustle of the files you can hear the crying of children, the shunting of trains, the echo of footsteps down to the cellars, the single shot of the Nagant pistol delivering the seven grams. The very paper smells of blood" (401). — Simon Montefiore

Some places[/people] are like that: they can suffer through wars, persecutions, and indifference, but they still remain sacred. Finally someone comes along, senses that something is missing, and rebuilds them. — Paulo Coelho

If the nature of the world is revealed to man through religion, then gardens, as places for contemplation, should symbolise the perfection of nature. — Tom Turner

Religious warriors are not an anomaly. It is a mistake to classify believers of particular religious and dogmatic religionlike ideologies into two groups, moderate versus extremist. The true cause of hatred and violence is faith versus faith, an outward expression of the ancient instinct of tribalism. Faith is the one thing that makes otherwise good people do bad things. Nowhere do people tolerate attacks on their person, their family, their country - or their creation myth. In America, for example, it is possible in most places to openly debate different views on religious spirituality - including the nature and even the existence of God, providing it is in the context of theology and philosophy. But it is forbidden to question closely, if at all, the creation myth - the faith - of another person or group, no matter how absurd. To disparage anything in someone else's sacred creation myth is "religious bigotry." It is taken as the equivalent of a personal threat. — Edward O. Wilson

Occasionally we glimpse the South Rim, four or five thousand feet above. From the rims the canyon seems oceanic; at the surface of the river the feeling is intimate. To someone up there with binoculars we seem utterly remote down here. It is this know dimension if distance and time and the perplexing question posed by the canyon itself- What is consequential? (in one's life, in the life of human beings, in the life of a planet)- that reverberate constantly, and make the human inclination to judge (another person, another kind of thought) seem so eerie ... Two kinds of time pass here: sitting at the edge of a sun-warmed pool watching blue dragonflies and black tadpoles. And the rapids: down the glassy-smooth tongue into a yawing trench, climb a ten-foot wall of standing water and fall into boiling, ferocious hydraulics ... — Barry Lopez

I recognized everything, the waterfall and the lakes, the trees and paths. But they had forgotten me. That was bitter and I cried a lot. One should never return to sacred places. — Marianne Fredriksson

Life must have its sacred moments and its holy places. We need the infinite, the limitless, the uttermost
all that can give the heart a deep and strengthening peace. — A. Powell Davies

Of all the sacred places on the coast, none is more comforting than where rivers join the sea. By the river's disappearance we are reminded of life's passing, while by the ocean's beauty we accept it, in a hope we cannot explain. — Robert Adams

The mystical perception (which is only "mystical" if reality is limited to what can be measured by the intellect and senses) is remarkably consistent in all ages and all places. All phenomena are processes, connections, all is in flux ... have the mind screens knocked away to see there is no real edge to anything, that in the endless interpenetration of the universe, a molecular flow, a cosmic energy shimmers in all stone and steel as well as flesh ... — Peter Matthiessen

There, as the sacred mysteries tell us, the Seraphim, Cherubim and Thrones occupy the first places; but, unable to yield to them, and impatient of any second place, let us emulate their dignity and glory. And, if we will it, we shall be inferior to them in nothing. — Giovanni Pico Della Mirandola

But there are some things, child, that you should steal. That you must steal, if you have enough love and courage in your heart. You must snatch freedom from the hands of the tyrant. You must spirit away innocent lives before they are destroyed. You must hide secret and sacred places. — Lian Tanner

There are no unsacred places; there are only sacred places and desecrated places. — Wendell Berry

Exmoor and Dartmoor are sacred, magical places. You find a truer side of yourself there. — Dave Davies

A civilization without retail bookstores is unimaginable. Like shrines and other sacred meeting places, bookstores are essential artifacts of human nature. The feel of a book taken from the shelf and held in the hand is a magical experience, linking writer to reader. — Jason Epstein

Because we are not in a civilization which believes strongly in oracles or sacred places, we see the full frenzy of those who killed themselves to find the sepulcher of Christ. But being in a civilization which does believe in this dogma of fact for facts' sake, we do not see the full frenzy of those who kill themselves to find the North Pole. — G.K. Chesterton

Every organized religion holds that certain behaviors, rituals, personalities, places, and/or books are sacred. These organized teachings are proper in their own place, but they are mere options for the one infused with devotion. To such a one, God is direct and spontaneous, providing him with an immediate source of guidance and direction. His relationship with God is not mediated through anyone or anything. (104) — Prem Prakash

I don't really see a conflict between the church and the movies, the sacred and the profane ... there are major differences, but I could also see great similarities ... Both are places for people to come together and share. — Martin Scorsese

Theologian Stephen Crites says sacred stories are like dwelling places - like booths or tabernacles. We don't tell these stories as much as we inhabit them. — Sarah Arthur

Children, language, lands: almost everything was stripped away, stolen when you weren't looking because you were trying to stay alive. In the face of such loss, one thing our people could not surrender was the meaning of land. In the settler mind, land was property, real estate, capital, or natural resources. But to our people, it was everything: identity, the connection to our ancestors, the home of our nonhuman kinfolk, our pharmacy, our library, the source of all that sustained us. Our lands were where our responsibility to the world was enacted, sacred ground. It belonged to itself; it was a gift, not a commodity, so it could never be bought or sold. These are the meanings people took with them when they were forced from their ancient homelands to new places. — Robin Wall Kimmerer

Home is among the holiest of words. A true home is one of the most sacred of places. It is a sanctuary into which men flee from the world's perils and alarms. It is a resting-place to which at close of day the weary retire to gather new strength for the battle and toils of tomorrow. It is the place where love learns its lessons, where life is schooled into discipline and strength, where character is molded. Out of the homes of a community comes the life of the community, as a river from the thousand springs that gush out on the hillsides." -J.R. Miller — June Fuentes

RELIGIONS BECOME INSTITUTIONS when the myths and rituals that once shaped their sacred histories are transformed into authoritative models of orthodoxy (the correct interpretation of myths) and orthopraxy (the correct interpretation of rituals), though one is often emphasized over the other. Christianity may be the supreme example of an "orthodoxic" religion; it is principally one's beliefs - expressed through creed - that make one a faithful Christian. On the opposite end of the spectrum is Judaism, a quintessentially "orthopraxic" religion, where it is principally one's actions - expressed through the Law - that make one an observant Jew. It is not that beliefs are irrelevant in Judaism, or actions unimportant in Christianity. Rather, it is that of the two religions, Judaism places far greater emphasis on orthopraxic behavior than does Christianity. — Reza Aslan

The moment I took hold of the line, I felt the mighty tug of the wind coursing into my palm and wrist, and there I stayed, transfixed. The pwer in that topgallant sail suddenly awed me, and yet it was among the smaller sails on the mast. It was a mere speck on the ocean, catching an infinitesimal fraction of all the howling winds that crossed the wide seas. I literally could not move a muscle, trying in vain to absorb the magnitude of it.
And there was something else, as well. This wind was blowing me westward. I was hurtling into my own predestined future. With neither star nor compass, I knew the heading of this wind. It bore down on a lonely river crossing in one of the last wild places on Earth, where timber moaned in a gale, and frosty grass sparkled in the dawn, and beasts lumbered and thundered the valley. A sacred place protected by Comanches. — Mike Blakely

It turns out that prayer is one more way through which we can create changes in the land. By setting aside some places as sacred, we engage in an interaction with wild nature in which we do not take our sustenance from the earth, but instead make an offering to it. To construct "a portal to another world" through ceremony or ritual or private meditation is to create another type of working landscape - one that is at work by being a sanctuary and a site of communion with the wonders of Earth. Prayer, too, is a use of the landscape. It's how we can give back to wild nature, by doing what humans do best: investing a place with meaning and with myth. — Jason Mark

The landscape of childhood shapes us as it shapes the characters in our stories. You never forget the sacred places of your childhood. — John Dufresne

Modern man has successfully razed the imaginative landscapes of primal peoples the whole world over. Kill the gods first, slaughter the sacred animals, rewrite the mythologies, and build roads through the holy places. Do all this and watch the people decline. Without souls, they soon die, leaving dead shells, zombie cultures, shambling aimlessly towards oblivion. — Grant Morrison

They ordered from various designers, and returned to Paris several weeks later for their fittings. I was able to attend the fittings also, since I was in Paris working with Aziz on 'Sacred Sex in Sacred Places. — Young

If sacred places are spared the ravages of war ... then make all places sacred. And if the holy people are to be kept harmless from war ... then make all people holy. — J. Michael Straczynski

From The Spiral Dance to Dreaming the Dark to Truth or Dare, Starhawk has led us to places of risk and guided us to think in a new way, a womanly order. Now, in fiction, with the aid of her characters, she will save the earth and all the sacred things that dwell therein. — E. M. Broner