An ordained Buddhist nun, Pema Chodron is an acclaimed author and teacher. Her works are primarily aimed at applying the principles originally taught by Buddha to everyday life. Before becoming a Buddhist, she worked as an elementary school teacher.
“When you begin to touch your heart or let your heart be touched, you begin to discover that it's bottomless, that it doesn’t have any resolution, that this heart is huge, vast, and limitless. You begin to discover how much warmth and gentleness is there, as well as how much space.”
- Pema Chodron (1936- )
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One of the best known Buddhist teachers in the west, the Zen Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hanh is an author and peace activist. Nhat Hanh offers the practice of ‘mindfulness’, which appeals to people of various political and spiritual backgrounds.
“We are here to awaken from the illusion of our separateness.”
- Thich Nhat Hanh (1926- )
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May Sarton, an American author and poet, wrote beautiful prose and poetry which captured the essence of contemplation and solitude.
“Loneliness is the poverty of self; solitude is the richness of self.”
- May Sarton (1912-1995)
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Simone Weil was a French philosopher and social activist. In 1915 at the age of six, she refused to eat sugar, in solidarity with troops on the Western Front. She died young from tuberculosis.
“Do not allow yourself to be imprisoned by any affection. Keep your solitude. The day, if it ever comes, when you are given true affection there will be no opposition between interior solitude and friendship, quite the reverse. It is even by this infallible sign that you will recognize it.”
- Simone Weil (1909-1943)
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An American visionary, poet, and architect, R. Buckminster Fuller devoted his life to the philosophical question, “Does humanity have a chance to survive successfully on planet Earth, and if so, how?” This stamp, based on an original painting by Boris Artzybasheff (1899-1965), first appeared on the cover of Time Magazine in on January 10th 1964.
“You do not belong to you. You belong to the universe. The significance of you will remain forever a mystery to you, but you may assume you are fulfilling your significance if you apply yourself to converting all your experience to the highest advantage of others.”
- R. Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983)
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An American astronomer, author, and highly successful populizer of astronomy and other natural sciences, Carl Sagan, wrote the novel ‘Contact’, which became a film starring the celebrity actress, Jodie Foster, in 1997. His 1980 PBS series, ‘Cosmos’, became the most watched PBS series in history, seen by more than 600 million people in over 60 countries.
“A religion, old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the universe as revealed by modern science might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by conventional faiths. Sooner or later such a religion will emerge.”
- Carl Sagan (1934-1996)
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A man of the Enlightenment and 3rd President of the United States, Thomas Jefferson supported the separation of church and state.
“Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear.”
- Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)
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Krishna is the speaker of this Sanskrit prose...
“As a man can drink water from any side of a full tank, so the skilled theologian can wrest from any scripture that which will serve his purpose.”
- Bhagavad Gita (sacred Hindu text)
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An influential figure in contemporary thought, Kierkegaard was a prolific Danish philosopher and theologian.
“Since boredom advances and boredom is the root of all evil, no wonder, then, that the world goes backwards, that evil spreads. This can be traced back to the very beginning of the world. The gods were bored; therefore they created human beings.”
- Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855)
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Billy Graham is a career evangelist and spiritual advisor to multiple U.S. presidents. He has preached in person to more people around the world than anyone who has ever lived. As of 2002, his lifetime audience topped 2 billion.
“Only those who want everything done for them are bored.”
- Billy Graham (1918- )
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The 14th Dalai Lama, charismatic leader of the Tibetan people, lectures often on religious harmony and world peace.
“This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness.”
- The Dalai Lama (1935- )
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Often in trouble with the government and the church, the French Enlightenment writer and essayist Francoise Marie Arouet, better known for his pen name, Voltaire, was known for his wit and satire. The famed composer Leonard Bernstein wrote the operetta ‘Candide’, based on Voltaire’s novel. Here are three quotes from Voltaire.
“When one speaks to another man who doesn't understand him, and when the man who's speaking no longer understands, it's metaphysics.”
“God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh.”
“If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.”
- Voltaire (1694-1778)
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The first licensed woman glider pilot in the U.S., Anne Morrow Lindbergh was an experienced pilot, author, and wife of famed aviator Charles Lindbergh.
“The intellectual is constantly betrayed by his vanity. Godlike he blandly assumes that he can express everything in words; whereas the things one loves, lives, and dies for are not, in the last analysis completely expressible in words.”
- Anne Morrow Lindbergh (1906-2001)
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A Wise Proverb...
“Call on God, but row away from the rocks.”
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Wise words from Mother Theresa, the Roman Catholic nun who won the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1979 for her humanitarian work in India.
“Never worry about numbers. Help one person at a time, and always start with the person nearest you.”
Mother Theresa (1910-1997)
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Best known for his ‘Theory of Relativity’, the Nobel Prize winning physicist Albert Einstein was a deeply spiritual man.
“My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind.”
– Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
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Born in Poland (then part of the Russian Empire), Isaac Bashevis Singer was a Nobel Prize winning author who emigrated to the United States in 1935. His story, ‘Yentl’, was made into a successful movie starring Barbra Streisand. Singer was also a vegetarian and felt that eating meat went against all ideal and religions.
“If you keep on saying things are going to be bad, you have a good chance of becoming a prophet.”
- Isaac Bashevis Singer (1904-1991)
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Two quotations from musician, peace activist and Nobel Peace Prize nominee, Bono. He is the lead singer and principle lyricist of the Irish rock band U2. His music has social, political and religious themes and he champions world peace.
“The music that really turns me on is either running toward God or away from God. Both recognize the pivot, that God is at the center of the jaunt.”
“At a certain point, I felt that God is not looking for alms; God is looking for action.”
- Bono (1960- )
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