Universalist Quotes & Sayings

Interventionism is inextricable from the American idea. If the United States retreats into isolationism, it ceases to be itself ? a nation dedicated, however much it falls short, to a universalist ideal of freedom. — Roger Cohen

UNIVERSALIST, n. One who forgoes the advantage of a Hell for persons of another faith. — Ambrose Bierce

I have never been able to conjure up (as some great Evangelical missionaries have) the appalling vision of the millions who are not only perishing but will inevitably perish. On the other hand ... I am not and cannot be a universalist. Between these extremes I cherish and hope the majority of the human race will be be saved. And I have a solid biblical basis for this belief. — John Stott

The universalist approach is roughly: 'What is good and right can be defined and always applies.' In particularist cultures far greater attention is given to the obligations of relationships and unique circumstances. — Fons Trompenaars

when people ask me what I believe now, I don't want to weigh them down with "I'm a Unitarian Universalist Neo-Pagan scientific pantheist humanist who practices Buddhist insight meditation (Vipassana)," even though that's the truth. Sometimes, however, I have the personal need to privately unpack these labels which usually blend seamlessly in my daily life in order to get a better sense of who I am and where I'm going on this spiritual journey. — John Halstead

...one may easily define two diametrically opposed lessons to be drawn from Jewish history: one holds that the memory of Jewish suffering should lead to a humanistic, universalist approach emphasizing the dangers of intolerance and racism; this is the lesson embodied in the repeated historical reminders that the Jews were brought 'out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage,' and that consequently, they were enjoined, 'love ye therefore the stranger, for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.'"

"The other lesson seeks revenge for past sufferings, and beckons the Jews, now that they have their state, to hunt with the wolves and - invoking the injunction to remember the Amalekites - seeks to apply rules of exclusiveness laid down in totally different circumstances. — Amnon Rubinstein

Hypocrisy, double standards, and "but nots" are the price of universalist pretensions. Democracy is promoted, but not if it brings Islamic fundamentalists to power; nonproliferation is preached for Iran and Iraq, but not for Israel; free trade is the elixir of economic growth, but not for agriculture; human rights are an issue for China, but not with Saudi Arabia; aggression against oil-owning Kuwaitis is massively repulsed, but not against non-oil-owning Bosnians. Double standards in practice are the unavoidable price of universal standards of principle. — Samuel P. Huntington

What makes it difficult for the average man to be a universalist is that the average man has to be a specialist; he has not only to learn one trade, but to learn it so well as to uphold him in a more or less ruthless society. — G.K. Chesterton

A Universalist, your heart cannot but dilate, and your affections widen, until the divine expansion, like the ambient atmosphere, embraces every form, which is acted upon by an immortal spirit. — Judith Sargent Murray

It is no coincidence that a rebirth of psychedelic use is occuring as we acquire the technological capability to leave the planet. The mushroom visions and the transformation of the human image precipitated by space exploration are spun together. Nothing less is happening than the emergence of a new human order. A telepathic, humane, universalist kind of human culture is emerging that will make everything that preceded it appear like the stone age. — Terence McKenna

it was the power of the military, and in particular that of the Air Force, which was the hidden hand that allowed universalist ideas to matter so much more than terrain and the historical experience of people living on it. — Robert D. Kaplan

The diffusion of a universalist culture and of a pedagogy of peace appears more than ever to be the path that we must follow for the salvation of all nations on earth. — Carlo Azeglio Ciampi

The lover of excellence is prone to being drawn out of himself, erotically almost, in a way that the universalist egalitarian is not. The latter's empathy, projected from afar and without discrimination, is more principled than attentive. It is similar to bad art and mathematical shoelaces, in this regard; it is content to posit rather than to see the humanity of its beneficiaries. — Matthew B. Crawford

I always try to be a universalist, not a specialist. — Willy Bogner Jr.

Putting this all together, it makes sense that WEIRD philosophers since Kant and Mill have mostly generated moral systems that are individualistic, rule-based, and universalist. That's the morality you need to govern a society of autonomous individuals. — Jonathan Haidt

Bush is morally a universalist. For instance, he says the freedom is good, the same thing is good, all over the world. So in that sense he's a universalist. — Peter Singer

The more the Jew is a Jew, the more universalist will his views and aspirations be, the less aloof will he be from anything that is noble and good, true and upright, in art or science, in culture or education; the more joyfully will he applaud whenever he sees truth and justice and peace and the ennoblement of man prevail and become dominant in human society. — Samson Raphael Hirsch

I'm not a chauvinist. I'm a universalist. I think that God imploded, like a spiritual big bang, to launch the eight civilizations that make up recorded history and the religions in those civilizations. — Huston Smith

I remain convinced that I can be a true universalist only when I am a better Jew. — Theodore Bikel

There are very few men and women in whom a Universalist feeling is altogether lacking; its prevalence suggests that it must be part of our inborn nature and have a place in Nature's scheme of evolution. — Arthur Keith

Deeply rooted in the universalist Western tradition of the Stoics and the the early medieval Christians, Tolkien created a myth to explore the nature of the human person against the avaricious dreams of the capitalists and the diabolical schemes of the national and international socialists, all of whom would replace God with man. — Bradley J. Birzer

The Holocaust was in actuality both, but for a long time the overwhelming part of it comprised by the attempted Nazi eradication of European Jewry was downplayed in many circles in favour of its more universalist aspect. — Steven Beller

I am definitively not a 'universalist'".

~R. Alan Woods [2012] — R. Alan Woods

But in one thing I would go beyond strict orthodoxy - I am a convinced universalist. I believe that in the end all men will be gathered into the love of God. — William Barclay

[I suspect] that in the drive toward the liberal universalist notion of human rights that characterized the last fifty or so years, there has been an accompanying oversensitivity that, in practice, keeps us atomized and more likely to be manipulated and have our rights impinged upon. — Darren O'Donnell

I'm not a universalist, and the way I talk about final loss is this: People worship idols - money, whatever. Their humanness gets reshaped around the idol - you become like what you worship. That's one of the basic spiritual laws. — N. T. Wright

I am a universalist, passionately devoted to the cause of equality within the human family. — Theodore Bikel