Huston SmithAfter his great awakening, the Buddha continued to meditate and to devote himself to others; otherwise his vision would have receded into a pleasant memory.371Sadness
Huston SmithSo always, if we look back, concern for face-to-face morality, and its modern emphasis on justice as well, have historically evolved as religious issues. ✨ Huston Smith, Jef… ▶361ReadingReflectionSadness
Huston Smith...like a magnetic compass turning north, I always tried to head in the direction of the better, which is the direction to God. ...the directions that appeared to lead away from C… ▶362Thought
Huston SmithIf we take the world’s enduring religions at their best, we discover the distilled wisdom of the human race.375HumanityPhilosophy
Huston SmithExclusively oral cultures are unencumbered by dead knowledge, dead facts. Libraries, on the other hand, are full of them. ✨ Huston Smith, Jeffery Paine (2012). The Huston Sm… ▶375DeathReadingSadness
Huston SmithWhen there are miles to go before we sleep, altered traits are more important than altered states.365Politics
Huston SmithI simply wanted to experience the presence of this man who had revolutionized my understanding. After a while we sat in silence, gazing at the barren canyon walls. And the mute de… ▶311Life
Huston SmithMost of the book deals with things we already know yet never learn.322Reading
Huston SmithLove is the movement within life that carries us, that enables us, that causes us to break out of what Alan Watts calls the “skin-encapsulated ego.” Without love, we are self-cent… ▶368HumanityLifeLove
Huston SmithThe goal of spiritual life is not altered states, but altered traits336LifePolitics
Huston SmithImagine a man besottedly in love: he won't waste time speculating whether other women equally merit his affection.369LoveTime
Huston SmithPoetry is a special use of language that opens onto the real. The business of the poet is truth telling, which is why in the Celtic tradition no one could be a teacher unless he o… ▶349LifeTruth
Huston SmithIt must have been providence that directed Joel Morwood to dig in the right place, for he struck a lode of pure gold, as wide (comprehensive) as it is deep (profound). What he min… ▶251Hope
Huston SmithBuilt into human makeup is a longing for a 'more' that the world of everyday experience cannot requite. ✨ Huston Smith (2009). Why Religion Matters: The Fate of the Human Sp… ▶295HumanityLife
Huston SmithModernity sees humanity as having ascended from what is inferior to it - life begins in slime and ends in intelligence - whereas traditional cultures see it as descended from its … ▶262HumanityLife
Huston SmithAncient wisdom and quantum physicists make unlikely bedfellows: In quantum mechanics the observer determines (or even brings into being) what is observed, and so, too, for the Tiw… ▶3410HumanityPhilosophy
Huston SmithThe most powerful moral influence is example. ✨ Huston Smith (2012). The Huston Smith Reader, p.89, Univ of California Press317PoliticsReading
Huston SmithAs the twentieth century began, science equaled a materialistic worldview. As the twenty-first century began, the worldview of science, at least of physics and astronomy, may have… ▶243DeathReflection
Huston SmithThe object of pilgrimage is not rest and recreation – to get away from it all. To set out on a pilgrimage is to throw down a challenge to everyday life.221Life
Huston SmithWhen I read the Upanishads, which are part of Vedanta, I found a profundity of worldview that made my Christianity seem like third grade. ✨ The World of Religion According t… ▶225Reading
Huston SmithWe all carry it within us: supreme strength, the fullness of wisdom, unquenchable joy. It is never thwarted, and cannot be destroyed. ✨ Huston Smith (2009). The World's Reli… ▶226Philosophy
Huston SmithInstitutions are not pretty. Show me a pretty government. Healing is wonderful, but the American Medical Association? Learning is wonderful, but universities? The same is true for… ▶226PoliticsTruth
Huston SmithGod is defined by Jesus but not confined to Jesus. ✨ Huston Smith's painful spiritual odyssey by John Blake, edition.cnn.com. November 23, 2009.182Sadness
Huston SmithReligion teaches us that our lives here on earth are to be used for transformation. ✨ Huston Smith, Jeffery Paine (2012). The Huston Smith Reader, p.225, Univ of California … ▶205ReadingSadness
Huston SmithWith mind distracted, never thinking, Death is coming, To slave away on the pointless business of mundane life, And then to come out empty--it is a tragic error. (116) trans by Ro… ▶227DeathLifeThought
Huston SmithRationalism and Newtonian science has lured us into dark woods, but a new metaphysics can rescue us.227Philosophy
Huston Smith...conversation can be as mutually incomprehensible as foreign languages. We need the different and complementary perspectives of the various yogas - and ideally of all religions … ▶162ReadingSadnessThought
Huston SmithA religion made up solely of heightened religious experiences would not be a religion at all. ...The major religious traditions address the mysteries (with or without entheogens),… ▶228HumanityLifePhilosophy
Huston SmithThe crisis that the world finds itself in as it swings on the hinge of a new millennium is located in something deeper than particular ways of organizing political systems and eco… ▶228HumanityPolitics
Huston SmithOne reason education undoes belief is its teaching of evolution; Darwin's own drift from orthodoxy to agnosticism was symptomatic. Martin Lings is probably right in saying that mo… ▶174Hope
