Sacred Systems Quotes & Sayings

The man nodded and brought a bottle from the glass-fronted fridge, — Ian Rankin

A work of fiction should be, for its author, a journey into the unknown, and the prose should convey the difficulties of the journey. — Anthony Burgess

Religions are metaphorical systems that give us bigger containers in which to hold our lives. A spiritual life allows us to move beyond the ego into something more universal. Religious experience carries us outside of clock time into eternal time. We open ourselves into something more complete and beautiful. This bigger vista is perhaps the most magnificent aspect of a religious experience.
There is a sense in which Karl Marx was correct when he said that religion is the opiate of the people. However, he was wrong to scoff at this. Religion can give us skills for climbing up on onto a ledge above our suffering and looking down at it with a kind and open mind. This helps us calm down and connect to all of the world's sufferers. Since the beginning of human time, we have yearned for peace in the face of death, loss, anger and fear. In fact, it is often trauma that turns us toward the sacred, and it is the sacred that saves us. — Mary Pipher

With the traditional Australian's indifference to personal dryness and venomous underwater predators, she dived right in. — Lev Grossman

Our liberal political and judicial systems are founded on the belief that every individual has a sacred inner nature, indivisible and immutable, which gives meaning to the world, and which is the source of all ethical and political authority. — Yuval Noah Harari

To grant life more importance than it has is the mistake committed in sagging systems; as a consequence, no one is ready to sacrifice himself to defend them, and they collapse under the first blows perpetrated upon them. This is even more true of nations in general. Once they begin to hold life sacred, it abandons them, it ceases to be on their side. — Emil Cioran

Yes, all of life is sacred, including plants; and yes, there is research that demonstrates that plants have feelings - they feel it when their leaves or stems are ripped - and there is scientific evidence that while plants do not have brains and nervous systems like animals, they nevertheless actively work to ensure their survival - they want to live, thrive, reproduce, evolve. — Sharon Gannon

Memory is a poet, not an historian. — Marie Howe

I do not teach. I relate. — Michel De Montaigne

None of us like the concept of law because none of us like the restraints it puts on us. But when we understand that God has given us his law to aid us in guarding our souls, we see that the law is for our fulfillment, not for our limitation. The law reminds us that some things, some experiences, some relationships are sacred. When everything has been profaned, it is not just my freedom that has been lost- the loss is everyone's. God gave us the law to remind us of the sacredness of life, and our created legal systems only serve to remind us of the profane judgments we make. — Ravi Zacharias

A winged angel, with the sign of the sun upon his forehead and on his breast the square and triangle of the septenary. I speak of him in the masculine sense, but the figure is neither male nor female. It is held to be pouring the essences of life from chalice to chalice. It has one foot upon the earth and one upon waters, thus illustrating the nature of the essences. A direct path goes up to certain heights on the verge of the horizon, and above there is a great light, through which a crown is seen vaguely. Hereof is some part of the Secret of Eternal Life, as it is possible to man in his incarnation. All the conventional emblems are renounced herein. — Arthur Edward Waite

My father thought that if I was to go into the army, at the least I would have a reliable paycheck at the end of each month with which to feed my family. Music is less assured. One could say more dangerous! — Vieux Farka Toure

That lifestyle wears you down fast, so I started to take better care of myself. I exercise, sleep eight hours a night, take vitamins, eat organic foods, skip foods that aren't good for me, and I surround myself with amazing artists and friends. — Beth Riesgraf

Church was never intended to be a place where we serve God to the exclusion of meeting with Him. — James MacDonald

Those who would be employed in propagating the Gospel should be familiar with the doctrines he is to combat and the doctrines he is to teach, and acquire a complete knowledge both of the Sacred Scriptures and of these philosophical and mythological dogmas which form the souls of the Buddhist and Hindu Systems. — William Carey

The difficulty, if you're in the world - and this is for anybody - is the eventual disappointment that comes with having to meet other versions of reality. Imposed systems that ask you to compromise or sacrifice things which you consider holy or sacred. — Billy Corgan

The conclusion of intelligent design flows naturally from the data itself - not from sacred books or sectarian beliefs. Inferring that biochemical systems were designed by an intelligent agent is a humdrum process that requires no new principles of logic or science. It comes simply from the hard work that biochemistry has done over the past forty years, combined with consideration of the way in which we reach conclusions of design every day. — Michael J. Behe

People give ear to an upstart astrologer who strove to show that the earth revolves, not the heavens or the firmament, the sun and the moon. Whoever wishes to appear clever must devise some new system, which of all systems is of course the very best. This fool wishes to reverse the entire science of astronomy; but the sacred scripture tells us that Joshua commanded the sun to stand still, not the earth. — Martin Luther

So what did you do when death came to your house? We continued in the same way as before. What is that, a failure of the imagination? Are you in denial? This is not wholly true; we continue in the same way as before but in parenthesis. My thinking has switched its grammar. The present continuous is its single operational tense. Uncertainty is our present and our future. — Marion Coutts

Then there is the way that was taught two thousand years ago - of overcoming evil with good, which is my way, the way Jesus taught. Never loose faith: God's way is bound to prevail in the end. — Peace Pilgrim

We can choose to move with God, further into justice and wholeness, or we can choose to prop up the world's dead systems, baptizing injustice and power in sacred language. — Sarah Bessey

Choosing to do things your way may doom me to be a penniless spinster."
"If Christ called you to be penniless, would you not become so willingly? — Melissa Jagears

Neuroscience is fast developing the technical and conceptual wherewithal to reveal in fine, bare detail the neurobiological substrates of the mind. Perhaps it will despoil a sacred myth - the myth of selfhood and souls. And, if so, we may be wandering innocently into the opening phase of a dangerous game. Our ethics and systems of justice, our entire moral order, are founded on the notion of society as a collective of individual selves - autonomous, introspective, accountable agents. If this self-reflective, moral agent is revealed to be illusory, then what? — Paul Broks

Not only a fanatic and an incendiary (two of the insults that dogged Defoe most closely in his lifetime), the author of Robinson Crusoe was also an egregious spiv, and a slave to bling. — Daniel Defoe

Love means nothing if you can't accept someone for their core values. — Katie Chapman