Enlightenment Quotes

There is no doubt that religion had already waned under the onslaught of the Enlightenment, but it was Freud who provided the radically new understanding of human nature that made any religious explanation of the whats and whys of our personhood seem naive.

It is not the simple statement of facts that ushers in freedom; it is the constant repetition of them that has this liberating effect. Tolerance is the result not of enlightenment, but of boredom.

To enjoy good health, to bring true happiness to one's family, to bring peace to all, one must first discipline and control one's own mind. If a man can control his mind he can find the way to Enlightenment, and all wisdom and virtue will naturally come to him.

I just read an 800-page history of the Scottish Enlightenment and, honestly, I may as well just start it again now, because I cannot remember a single thing. I can barely remember where Scotland is.

Everyone has a spirit that can be refined, a body that can be trained in some manner, a suitable path to follow. You are here to realize your inner divinity and manifest your innate enlightenment.

The left has come to regard common sense - the traditional wisdom and folkways of the community - as an obstacle to progress and enlightenment.

If we remove ourselves from the world, we are pretending that we can follow our own individual enlightenment and let the rest of the world go to hell, so to speak.

The Bible and several other self help or enlightenment books cite the Seven Deadly Sins. They are: pride, greed, lust, envy, wrath, sloth, and gluttony. That pretty much covers everything that we do, that is sinful... or fun for that matter.

God is not anything human. God is a force, God is chaos, God is unknown. God is terror and enlightenment at the same time.

Our society is the product of several great religious and philosophical traditions. The ideas of the Greeks and Romans, Christianity, Judaism, humanism and the Enlightenment have made us who we are.

The connections I draw between human nature and political systems in my new book, for example, were prefigured in the debates during the Enlightenment and during the framing of the American Constitution.

Enlightenment must come little by little - otherwise it would overwhelm.

I think the Enlightenment is leading us into a dark hole, really.

Just being the seeker, somebody whose open to spiritual enlightenment, is in itself the important thing and it's the reward for being a seeker in this world.

The process of philosophic and scientific enlightenment has shaken the stability of beliefs held explicitly as articles of faith.

The enlightenment is under threat. So is reason. So is truth. So is science, especially in the schools of America.

Do not think you will necessarily be aware of your own enlightenment.

Always keep your mind as bright and clear as the vast sky, the great ocean, and the highest peak, empty of all thoughts. Always keep your body filled with light and heat. Fill yourself with the power of wisdom and enlightenment.

There are about 15 million Muslims in the EU. They face ignorance, insult and even persecution. They cannot be wished away. To impose Enlightenment freedoms is self-defeating. Anyway, the Muslims have their own enlightenment.

My Lords temporal, today is the day to rise up against the regiment of Lords spiritual and proclaim the values of enlightenment, compassion and common sense.

History shows that our way of life is the stronger way. From it has come more wealth, more industry, more happiness, more human enlightenment than from any other way.

The real meaning of enlightenment is to gaze with undimmed eyes on all darkness.

Working with plants, trees, fences and walls, if they practice sincerely they will attain enlightenment.

But by reading them again and again finally I was able to grasp the essential part. What emotion, enthusiasm, enlightenment and confidence they communicated to me! I wept for joy.

By any reasonable measure of achievement, the faith of the Enlightenment thinkers in science was justified.

I don't believe that human beings can achieve ultimate enlightenment, because humans have flaws.

Not creating delusions is enlightenment.

I think at some point at a moment of enlightenment in the future, the federal government and perhaps a future Supreme Court is going to say it's not a bad thing for children to hear prayer in school.

Our sexual lives are maintained by the shadow side and the light side, so the more we can understand and embrace enlightenment, the less need there is for chemical enhancement.

Enlightenment is the key to everything, and it is the key to intimacy, because it is the goal of true authenticity.