“One can follow any religion, one can follow any practice or path, but one must be humane.”
Haidakhan Babaji teacher in northern India
The Teachings of Babaji, 22 January 1983
Humanity
1840s, Heroes and Hero-Worship (1840), The Hero as Prophet
“One can follow any religion, one can follow any practice or path, but one must be humane.”
Haidakhan Babaji teacher in northern India
The Teachings of Babaji, 22 January 1983
Humanity
George Lyttelton, 1st Baron Lyttelton (1709–1773) British politician
Song; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986) Indian spiritual philosopher
Source: 1980s, Mind Without Measure (1984), p. 97
Context: How can one be compassionate if you belong to any religion, follow any guru, believe in something, believe in your scriptures, and so on, attached to a conclusion? When you accept your guru, you have come to a conclusion, or when you strongly believe in god or in a saviour, this or that, can there be compassion? You may do social work, help the poor out of pity, out of sympathy, out of charity, but is all that love and compassion?
Karl Pearson (1857–1936) English mathematician and biometrician
The Ethic of Freethought (Mar 6, 1883)
Samuel Butler (1835–1902) novelist
Religion
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part II - Elementary Morality
“What use is it to slumber here:
Though the heart be sad and weary?”
Emily Brontë (1818–1848) English novelist and poet
What Use Is It To Slumber Here?
Context: What use is it to slumber here:
Though the heart be sad and weary?
What use is it to slumber here
Though the day rise dark and dreary?
John Campbell Shairp (1819–1885) British writer
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 503.
“I followed my heart without breaking any rules.”
Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher
“Jesus awakens, challenges and inspires us to take up the cross and follow”
Kirby Page (1890–1957) American clergyman
The Personality of Jesus (1932)
Context: By his own experience of God and his estimate of man, by his emphasis upon and practice of brotherhood, by his repudiation of hatred and violence, while attacking with audacity deeply entrenched inequities, and by his vicarious suffering on the cross, Jesus awakens, challenges and inspires us to take up the cross and follow in his sacrificially redemptive steps. Thus we are saved and thus society must be redeemed.
R.S. Thomas (1913–2000) Welsh poet
R. S. Thomas : Priest and Poet, BBC TV (2 April 1972)
Context: Any form of orthodoxy is just not part of a poet's province … A poet must be able to claim … freedom to follow the vision of poetry, the imaginative vision of poetry … And in any case, poetry is religion, religion is poetry. The message of the New Testament is poetry. Christ was a poet, the New Testament is metaphor, the Resurrection is a metaphor; and I feel perfectly within my rights in approaching my whole vocation as priest and preacher as one who is to present poetry; and when I preach poetry I am preaching Christianity, and when one discusses Christianity one is discussing poetry in its imaginative aspects. … My work as a poet has to deal with the presentation of imaginative truth.