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Karen Armstrong citations
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Karen Armstrong, né le 14 novembre 1944 à Wildmoor, est un écrivain britannique spécialisé dans l'histoire des religions. Wikipedia  

✵ 14. novembre 1944   •   Autres noms Karen Armstrongová, کارن آرمسترانق, 凱倫·岩士唐
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Karen Armstrong: 56   citations 0   J'aime

Karen Armstrong: Citations en anglais

“Humiliate your enemy is dangerous.”

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Karen Armstrong

Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life

“Human beings are the only animals who have the capacity to envisage something that is not present or something that does not yet exist but which is merely possible. The imagination has thus been the cause of our major achievements in science and technology as well as in art and religion.”

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Karen Armstrong livre A History of God

Source: A History of God (1993), Chapter 7, God of the Mystics

“Yet it is perhaps worth mentioning that the masculine tenor of God-talk is particularly problematic in English. In Hebrew, Arabic and French, however, grammatical gender gives theological discourse a sort of sexual counterpoint and dialectic, which provides a balance that is often lacking in English. Thus in Arabic al-Lah (the supreme name for God) is grammatically masculine, but the word for the divine and inscrutable essence of God—al-Dhat—is feminine.”

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Karen Armstrong livre A History of God

A History of God (1993)

“Monotheism is essentially inimical to tribalism: it demands that a people unite in a single community.”

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Karen Armstrong

Source: Muhammad: A Biography of The Prophet (2001), Chapter 6, The Satanic Verses

“Deeds that seemed unimportant at the time would prove to have been momentous; a tiny act of selfishness and unkindness or, conversely, an unconsidered act of generosity would become the measure of a human life.”

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Karen Armstrong

Muhammad: A Prophet of Our Times
Muhammad: A Biography of The Prophet (2001)

“The word qur’an means “recitation.” It was not designed for private perusal, but like most scriptures, it was meant to be read aloud, and the sound was an essential part of the sense. Poetry was important in Arabia. The poet was the spokesman, social historian, and cultural authority of his tribe, and over the years the Arabs had learned how to listen to a recitation and had developed a highly sophisticated critical ear.”

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Karen Armstrong

Muhammad: A Prophet of Our Times
Muhammad: A Biography of The Prophet (2001)

“Muslim fundamentalists have toppled governments and either assassinated or threatened the enemies of Islam with the death penalty. Similarly, Jewish fundamentalists have settled in the Occupied Territories of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip with the avowed intention of driving out the Arab inhabitants, using force if necessary. Thus they believe that they are paving a way for the advent of the Messiah, which is at hand. In all its forms, fundamentalism is a fiercely reductive faith.”

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Karen Armstrong livre A History of God

A History of God (1993)

“He was decisive and wholehearted in everything he did, so intent non the task at hand that he never looked over his shoulder, even if his cloak got caught in a thorny bush. When he did turn to speak to somebody, he used to swing his entire body and dress him full face. When he shook hands, he was never the first to withdraw his own. He inspired such confidence that he was known as al-Amin, the Reliable One.”

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Karen Armstrong

Muhammad: A Prophet of Our Times
Muhammad: A Biography of The Prophet (2001)

“The new radical Islam is not simply inspired by the hatred of the West, however. Nor is it in any sense a homogeneous movement. Radical Muslims are primarily concerned to put their own house in order and to address the cultural dislocation that many have experienced in the modern period. It is really impossible to generalize about the rise of this more extreme form of the religion. It not only differs from country to country, but from town to town and from village to village. People feel cut off from their roots: Western culture has invaded the interstices of their lives.”

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Karen Armstrong

Source: Muhammad: A Biography of The Prophet (2001), Chapter 1: "Muhammad The Enemy"

“The more I learned about the history of religion, the more my earlier misgivings appeared justified. The doctrines that I had accepted without question as a child were indeed man-made, constructed over a long period. Science seemed to have disposed of the Creator God, and biblical scholars had proved that Jesus had never claimed to be divine.”

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Karen Armstrong livre A History of God

A History of God (1993)

“Muslims respect the pacifist message of Jesus (even though the Qu'ran points out that Christians can be very belligerent but they accept that force is sometimes necessary. If tyrants and loathsome regimes were not opposed militarily, evil would have swamped the whole world.”

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Karen Armstrong

Source: Muhammad: A Biography of The Prophet (2001), Chapter 7, Holy War

“Muhammad became the archetypal example of that perfect submission to the divine, and Muslims, as we shall see, would attempt to conform to this standard in their spiritual and social lives. Muhammad was never venerated as a divine figure, but he was held to be the Perfect Man. His surrender to God had been so complete that he had transformed society and enabled the Arabs to live together in harmony. The world Islam is etymologically related to salam (peace), and in these early years Islam did promote cohesion and concord.”

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Karen Armstrong

Islam: A Short History (2000), Chapter 1: Beginnings

“Eventually, with regret, I left the religious life, and, once freed of the burden of failure and inadequacy, I felt my belief in God slip quietly away. He had never really impinged upon my life, though I had done my best to enable him to do so. Now that I no longer felt so guilty and anxious about him, he became too remote to be a reality.”

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Karen Armstrong livre A History of God

A History of God (1993)

“One of the most characteristic new developments since the 1970s has been the rise of a type of religiosity that we usually call “fundamentalism” in most of the major world religions, including the three religions of God. A highly political spirituality, it is literal and intolerant in its vision. In the United States, which has always been prone to extremist and apocalyptic enthusiasm, Christian fundamentalism has attached itself to the New Right. Fundamentalists campaign for the abolition of legal abortion and for a hard line on moral and social decency.”

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Karen Armstrong livre A History of God

A History of God (1993)

“Newton and Descartes started to try and prove that God existed in the same way as they would try and prove something in the laboratory or with their mathematics … And when you try and mix science and religion you get bad science and bad religion. The two are doing two different things. … Science can give you a diagnosis of cancer. It can even cure your disease, but it cannot touch your grief and disappointment, nor can it help you to die well.”

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Karen Armstrong

Ode interview (2009)

“There is a distinction between belief in a set of propositions and a faith which enables us to put our trust in them.”

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Karen Armstrong livre A History of God

A History of God (1993)

“Religion is hard work. Its insights are not self-evident and have to be cultivated in the same way as an appreciation of art, music, or poetry must be developed.”

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Karen Armstrong livre The Case for God

Source: The Case for God (2009), Ch. 1 : Homo religiosus, p. 8

“He was simply a nadhir, a messenger with a warning, and should approach the Quraysh humbly, avoid provocation, and be careful not to attack their gods. This is what the great prophets had done in the past.28 A prophet had to be altruistic; he must not trumpet his own opinions egotistically or trample on the sensibilities of others, but should always put the welfare of the community first.”

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Karen Armstrong

Muhammad: A Prophet of Our Times
Muhammad: A Biography of The Prophet (2001)

“People would continue to adopt a particular conception of the divine because it worked for them, not because it was scientifically or philosophically sound.”

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Karen Armstrong livre A History of God

A History of God (1993)

“All truly creative thought is in some sense intuitive; it demands a leap forward into the dark world of uncreated reality. Seen in this way, intuition is not the abdication of reason but rather reason speeded up, encapsulated in an instant, so that a solution appears without the usual laborious logical preparations. A creative genius comes back from this undiscovered country like ones of the the heroes of antiquity, who has wrested something back from the gods and brought it to mankind. It is possible, perhaps, to see religious inspiration in a similar way.”

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Karen Armstrong

Source: Muhammad: A Biography of The Prophet (2001), Chapter 4: "Revelation"

“Yet a personal God can become a grave liability. He can be a mere idol carved in our own image, a projection of our limited needs. fears and desires. We can assume that he loves what we love and hates what we hate, endorsing our prejudices instead of compelling us to transcend them.”

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Karen Armstrong livre A History of God

A History of God (1993)

“I tremble for our world, where, in the smallest ways, we find it impossible, as Marshall Hodgson enjoined, to find room for the other in our minds. If we cannot accommodate a viewpoint in a friend without resorting to unkindness, how can we hope to heal the terrible problems of our planet? I no longer think that any principle or opinion is worth anything if it makes you unkind or intolerant.”

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Karen Armstrong

The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness (2004)

“I say that religion isn’t about believing things. It’s ethical alchemy. It’s about behaving in a way that changes you, that gives you intimations of holiness and sacredness.”

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Karen Armstrong

As quoted in Profile at TEDprize.org (2009) http://www.tedprize.org/karen-armstrong/

“Human beings cannot endure emptiness and desolation; they will fill the vacuum by creating a new focus of meaning. The idols of fundamentalism are not good substitutes for God; if we are to create a vibrant new faith for the twenty-first century, we should, perhaps, ponder the history of God for some lessons and warnings.”

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Karen Armstrong livre A History of God

A History of God (1993)

“The cosmology of the ancient world was telling you about the nature of life here and now. Genesis is not about the origins of life. There were many other creation stories current in Israel at that time and no one was required to believe in that one.”

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Karen Armstrong

Ode interview (2009)

“The word qur’an means “recitation.””

Help us translate this quote
Karen Armstrong

It was not designed for private perusal, but like most scriptures, it was meant to be read aloud, and the sound was an essential part of the sense. Poetry was important in Arabia. The poet was the spokesman, social historian, and cultural authority of his tribe, and over the years the Arabs had learned how to listen to a recitation and had developed a highly sophisticated critical ear.
Muhammad: A Prophet of Our Times
Muhammad: A Biography of The Prophet (2001)

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