Quotes by Philosophers - Page 304

No man should leave in the universe anything of which he is afraid.
G.K. Chesterton
Neither a man nor a crowd nor a nation can be trusted to act humanely or to think sanely under the influence of a great fear.
Bertrand Russell
Men are not afraid of things, but of how they view them.
Epictetus
Obstinate are the trammels, but my heart aches when I try to break them. Freedom is all I want, but to hope for it I feel ashamed. I am certain that priceless wealth is in thee, and that thou art my best friend, but I have not the heart to sweep away the tinsel that fills my room. The shroud that covers me is a shroud of dust and death; I hate it, yet hug it in love. My debts are large, my failures great, my shame secret and heavy; yet when I come to ask for my good, I quake in fear lest my prayer be granted.
Rabindranath Tagore
Conquer the world by intelligence, and not merely by being slavishly subdued by the terror that comes from it.
Bertrand Russell
Nothing gives a fearful man more courage than another's fear.
Umberto Eco
I often find that people confuse inner peace with some sense of insensibility whenever something goes wrong. In such cases inner peace is a permit for destruction: The unyielding optimist will pretend that the forest is not burning either because he is too lazy or too afraid to go and put the fire out.
Criss Jami
A fear of weakness only strengthens weakness.
Criss Jami
Fear is pain arising from the anticipation of evil.
Aristotle
It has always seemed that a fear of judgment is the mark of guilt and the burden of insecurity.
Criss Jami
Companionship is a foreign concept to some people. They fear it as much as the majority of people fear loneliness.
Criss Jami
Mastering others is strength. Mastering oneself makes you fearless.
Lao Tzu
Fear always springsfrom ignorance.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The constant assertion of belief is an indication of fear.
Jiddu Krishnamurti
Collective fear stimulates herd instinct, and tends to produce ferocity toward those who are not regarded as members of the herd.
Bertrand Russell
In an extroverted society, the difference between an introvert and an extrovert is that an introvert is often unconsciously deemed guilty until proven innocent.
Criss Jami
Courage is knowing what not to fear.
Plato
One is never afraid of the unknown one is afraid of the known coming to an end.
Jiddu Krishnamurti
Do the thing you fear and the death of fear is certain.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.
Bertrand Russell
He who fears he shall suffer, already suffers what he fears.
Michel de Montaigne
He who has overcome his fears will truly be free.
Aristotle
We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.
Plato
But, even granted that doubts, raised in the course of time against the tenants of the Christian faith, have long since robbed you of faith in the immortality of your spirit, you have nevertheless left one tenant undisturbed, and still ingenuously adhere to the one truth, that the spirit is your better part, and that the spiritual has greater claims on you than anything else
Max Stirner
In my experiences, the common critic of Christianity, when he thinks of Christianity, imagines a sort of elementary, Sunday School blunder of elements: fiery Hell, an angry God, 'try not to sin', 'be good so that you can go to Heaven', absurd miracles, hyper-fundamentalist tales, religious hypocrites, and Jesus telling people not to judge. There is no horse more dead than such. I maintain that understanding Christianity and the Bible is quite like painting a piece of art. Let a toddler paint a puppy; then let an adult who is a long-time painter paint the very same puppy. They are both paintings of the puppy, but one is far more detailed, rational, realistic, and believable than the other. One is distorted and comical; the other is proportional and lively. One can write off Theology if he so pleases, but he might not be very wise in using the toddler's painting when it comes time to identify the real puppy or when trying to confront actual men of the Faith.
Criss Jami
The Christian God seemed the most offensive to people precisely because he was the most godlike. He was too perfect even to be coaxed by human efforts, and therefore sent his son to do the job.
Criss Jami
Spirituality has thus come to be regarded by the world as those futile, self-torturing excesses of strange men and women who lived in far-off, benighted places and times. Accordingly, the One who came to give abundance of life is commonly thought of as a cosmic stuffed shirt, whose excessive "spirituality" probably did not allow him normal bodily functions and certainly would not permit him to throw a frisbee or tackle someone in a football game.
Dallas Willard
Twenty percent of Americans describe themselves as “spiritual but not religious.” Although the claim seems to annoy believers and atheists equally, separating spirituality from religion is a perfectly reasonable thing to do. It is to assert two important truths simultaneously: Our world is dangerously riven by religious doctrines that all educated people should condemn, and yet there is more to understanding the human condition than science and secular culture generally admit. One purpose of this book is to give both these convictions intellectual and empirical support.Before going any further, I should address the animosity that many readers feel toward the term spiritual. Whenever I use the word, as in referring to meditation as a “spiritual practice,” I hear from fellow skeptics and atheists who think that I have committed a grievous error.The word spirit comes from the Latin spiritus, which is a translation of the Greek pneuma, meaning “breath.” Around the thirteenth century, the term became entangled with beliefs about immaterial souls, supernatural beings, ghosts, and so forth. It acquired other meanings as well: We speak of the spirit of a thing as its most essential principle or of certain volatile substances and liquors as spirits. Nevertheless, many nonbelievers now consider all things “spiritual” to be contaminated by medieval superstition.I do not share their semantic concerns.[1] Yes, to walk the aisles of any “spiritual” bookstore is to confront the yearning and credulity of our species by the yard, but there is no other term—apart from the even more problematic mystical or the more restrictive contemplative—with which to discuss the efforts people make, through meditation, psychedelics, or other means, to fully bring their minds into the present or to induce nonordinary states of consciousness. And no other word links this spectrum of experience to our ethical lives.
Sam Harris
We have glorified wealth and freedom so much that it is impossible for most of us to truly believe that a man can truly be happy in a shack or within the confines of a prison cell.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Most people do not mind having a house that is smaller and/or a car that is cheaper than their neighbours’, as long as they each earn and have more money than their neighbours, and, equally important, their neighbours know that.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Atheists are the most honest of the human race. These people are unable to live a double life; they are unable to lie to themselves. Of course it's an evolutionary handicap, and if that handicap was widespread, our species would run the risk of extinction
Bangambiki Habyarimana
From the club of what atheist call false hope and false god (which offer solace to weak minds), atheist are calling you to their club of no god and no hope (which offers nothing in return. Join the club only if you are a strong minded individual capable of handling your life alone without the help of gods. )
Bangambiki Habyarimana
An atheist is someone who is disappointed in his search of god. He is a man who strongly needed god but couldn't find him. Atheism is a cry of despair
Bangambiki Habyarimana
I know what is going on in the heart of an atheist. Deep anguish that there is nothing beyond, nothing to live for, nothing to give him hope. I know because I endured the same predicament.
Bangambiki Habyarimana
After losing faith, even an atheist feels a yawning void in his soul that needs filling; there is nothing imaginable that he can fill with it. It was all along meant to be filled with the sacred, with the unknown and unknowable power. That's the curse or blessing of humanity
Bangambiki Habyarimana
Religion is pure hypnosis
Bangambiki Habyarimana
All religions are guesswork
Bangambiki Habyarimana
My gut instinct is that these heavens and hells exist nowhere else except in our hearts and minds
Bangambiki Habyarimana
Don’t curse the gods you will feel shame when you have to call on them for help
Bangambiki Habyarimana
God is powerful. Even those who claim not to believe in him fear him. Though their mouths may confess to disbelieve in him, their hearts yearn for him.
Bangambiki Habyarimana
All atheists will go to heaven. If god exists, not believing in him does not take him away and he cannot justly condemn those who seek him earnestly and cannot find him. He would even reward their earnest search for him.
Bangambiki Habyarimana
He is an atheist anyone who does not believe in my god and the wrath of god is upon him; I am in my right to meet that wrath on him," thunders the fanatic
Bangambiki Habyarimana
You can't have it both ways. Either you believe in my god or you go to hell
Bangambiki Habyarimana
It's utter arrogance to think that we can know what god ought to be or do. If we don't understand we must continue our search or recognize our ignorance
Bangambiki Habyarimana
All religions are "revealed" and "inspired". After all nothing happens without the "will" of god.
Bangambiki Habyarimana
If we believe that god is the creator of evil, maybe there is evil also in heaven, if that is the case, we are not out of the woods yet
Bangambiki Habyarimana
Don't create unbelief or doubt in people's minds. When you do so you ruin their lives and you have nothing to give them in its place. It's ok if people delude themselves those delusions keep their day running.
Bangambiki Habyarimana
An atheist is a disappointed true believer he is an angry and hungry soul who has failed to find a real god to whom he can anchor his hope
Bangambiki Habyarimana
All religions are man-made God has not yet revealed himself beyond doubt to anybody.
Bangambiki Habyarimana
When you have doubts about God, the right position to take is agnosticism, atheism is outright arrogance
Bangambiki Habyarimana
The more time you invest into studying religion, the more likely you are to disbelieve in the gods
Bangambiki Habyarimana
Religion is a theory about everything that needs to be proved only after death those who prove or disprove it never come back to us to tell the story
Bangambiki Habyarimana
It's impossible to do science without faith. Sometimes scientists build theories on the premises of faulty assumptions until they discover they were in error and begin again from square one until they discover the true theory. It's quite different with theologians, they build false theory upon false theory until they give you detailed descriptions of heaven and hell and construct dogmas to protect their errors and if you dare say they are in error they condemn you to eternal damnation they arrived at through false theories
Bangambiki Habyarimana
There is no difference between ancient and modern paganism. Christianity has five gods: three that band together against one who apparently has managed to stand his ground for millennia, and a mother of god who is worshiped at the same level as the other members of the quadrinity
Bangambiki Habyarimana
On close analysis, it would seem that there is a possibility that we are god's robots
Bangambiki Habyarimana
I believe only in one God, creator of everything that exists, visible and invisible, good and evil. I believe that he will ultimately save every soul and give it eternal life.
Bangambiki Habyarimana
Yes an atheist priest can perfectly minister to a believing congregation and miracles can happen in that congregation. Miracles depend on the faith of the believer, not that of the officiant. A bartender who never takes alcohol can serve alcohol to his clients. What is necessary is that the priest believes he is doing the good work. The congregation needs faith and it helps them. It would be evil to deny them such a service in the name of his lack of faith. - Bangambiki Habyarimana
Bangambiki Habyarimana
We all want to become more than we are, we want to live forever, that is why we hate death and create the afterlife.
Bangambiki Habyarimana
Belief in God puts our life on autopilot. We know that someone up there is watching us and is in control. Losing our faith puts off the autopilot, we have to run it manually, and check if everything is alright for ourselves. No wonder religion has a wide appeal; most of us are lazy and would like a supreme being to be in charge
Bangambiki Habyarimana
Can really anybody put his hand on his heart and profess to know beyond doubt what happens on the other side of this life?
Bangambiki Habyarimana