Top Karen Armstrong Quotes - Quotesmemo.com

Karen Armstrong Biography

Karen Armstrong

Karen Armstrong, OBE, FRSL (born 14 November 1944) is a British author and commentator of Irish Catholic descent known for her books on comparative religion. A former Roman Catholic religious sister, she went from a conservative to a more liberal and mystical Christian faith. She attended St Anne's College, Oxford, while in the convent and majored in English. She became disillusioned and left the convent in 1969. Her work focuses on commonalities of the major religions, such as the importance of compassion and the Golden Rule.

Read about Karen Armstrong in Wikipedia

Random Authors

Karen Armstrong Quotes

Yes, all fundamentalists feel that in a secular society, God has been relegated to the margin, to the periphery and they are all in different ways seeking to drag him out of that peripheral position, back to center stage.

Different, Position, Secular, Secular Society, Way, Ways

God [is] not the exclusive property of any one tradition. The divine light [cannot] be confined to a single lamp, belonging to the East or the West, but enlightens all human beings.

East, Lamps, Light, Single, West

A gentleman is not born but crafted. He had to work on himself in the same way as a sculptor shaped a rough stone and made it a thing of beauty.

Gentleman, Sculptor, Stones, Way, Work

Mythology and science both extend the scope of human beings. Like science and technology, mythology, as we shall see, is not about opting out of this world, but about enabling us to live more intensely within it.

Enabling, Like, Mythology, Technology, World

My study of religion, which I regard in many ways as an art form, is a search for meaning.

Art, Regard, Study, Way, Ways

I had tried, as I thought as a nun, to open myself to God and God seemed totally uninterested in me. The heavens remained closed and opaque. I now realize, of course, that I had a very, very inadequate idea of God. I was expecting clouds to part, a little sort of whisper in my ear, and of course, that's not what God is. God is not another being; we are talking about something much more profound.

Clouds, Idea, Ideas, Realize, Remained, Talking

We should probably all pause to confront our past from time to time, because it changes its meaning as our circumstances alter.

Circumstances, Meaning, Past, Pause, Should, Time

Zionism was originally a rebellion against religious Judaism and the PLO Charter was essentially secularist. But because the conflict was allowed to fester without a resolution, religion got sucked into the escalating cycle of violence and became part of the problem.

Cycle, Problem, Rebellion, Religion, Religious, Violence

A mode of knowledge rooted in silence and intuitive insight which gives meaning to life but which cannot be explained in rational terms.

Atheism, Explained, Giving, Intuitive, Silence, Terms

It's a great event to get outside and enjoy nature. I find it very exciting no matter how many times I see bald eagles.

Eagles, Events, Matter, Enjoy, See

I had failed to make a gift of myself to God.

Failed, Gift, God, Make

You are your best self when you give yourself away.

Away, Best Self, Give, Giving, Self

Whatever conclusions we reach about the reality of God, the history of this idea must tell us something important about the human mind and the nature of our aspiration.

Aspiration, History, Ideas, Mind, Reality

After a time I found that I could almost listen to the silence, which had a dimension all of its own. I started to attend to its strange and beautiful texture, which of course, it was impossible to express in words. I discovered that I felt at home and alive in the silence, which compelled me to enter my interior world and around there. Without the distraction of constant conversation, the words on the page began to speak directly to my inner self. They were no long expressing ideas that were simply interesting intellectually, but were talking directly to my own yearning and perplexity.

Attend, Beautiful, Distraction, Express, Home, Talking

When violence becomes imbedded in a region, then this affects everything. It affects your dreams, your fantasies and relationships, and your religion becomes violent, too.

Dream, Fantasy, Imbedded, Region, Violence

We can't say what God is, and until the modern period, Jewish, Christian, and Muslim theologians in the three God religions all knew that. They insisted that we have no idea what we meant when we said that God was good, or wise, or intelligent.

Christian, Intelligent, Modern, Muslim, Period, Wise

Religion is not about accepting twenty impossible propositions before breakfast, but about doing things that change you. It is a moral aesthetic, an ethical alchemy. If you behave in a certain way, you will be transformed.

Breakfast, Impossible, Propositions, Religion, Twenties

The early doctrines of the church, even doctrines like Trinity and Incarnation were originally also calls for action, calls for selflessness, calls for compassion, and unless you live that out compassionately, selflessly, you didn't understand what the doctrine was saying.

Church, Compassion, Doctrine, Doctrines, Incarnation, Selflessly

I like silence; I'm a gregarious loner and without the solitude, I lose my gregariousness.

Silence, Solitude, Loner, Gregariousness, Like

If we try to hold on to our partial glimpses of the divine, we cut it down to our own size and close our minds. Like it or nor, our human experience of anything or anybody is always incomplete: there is usually something that eludes us, some portion of experience that evades our grasp.

Cutting, Divine, Elude Us, Evades, Incomplete, Mind

1