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The Zürau Aphorisms (1917 - 1918)
Context: There is nothing besides a spiritual world; what we call the world of the senses is the Evil in the spiritual world, and what we call Evil is only the necessity of a moment in our eternal evolution.
One can disintegrate the world by means of very strong light. For weak eyes the world becomes solid, for still weaker eyes it seems to develop fists, for eyes weaker still it becomes shamefaced and smashes anyone who dares to gaze upon it.
Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer
Why I Am an Agnostic (1896)
Context: The theologian says that what we call evil is for our benefit—that we are placed in this world of sin and sorrow to develop character. If this is true I ask why the infant dies? Millions and millions draw a few breaths and fade away in the arms of their mothers. They are not allowed to develop character.
“What you call passion is not spiritual force, but friction between the soul and the outside world.”
Hermann Hesse book The Glass Bead Game
The Glass Bead Game (1943)
Context: To be capable of everything and do justice to everything, one certainly does not need less spiritual force and èlan and warmth, but more. What you call passion is not spiritual force, but friction between the soul and the outside world. Where passion dominates, that does not signify the presence of greater desire and ambition, but rather the misdirection of these qualities toward an isolated and false goal, with a consequent tension and sultriness in the atmosphere. Those who direct the maximum force of their desires toward the center, toward true being, toward perfection, seem quieter than the passionate souls because the flame of their fervor cannot always be seen.
Walter Rauschenbusch (1861–1918) United States Baptist theologian
Source: Christianity and the Social Crisis (1907), Ch.2 The Social Aims of Jesus, p. 91
“Spiritual life begins to decay when we fail to sense the grandeur of what is eternal in time.”
Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907–1972) Polish-American Conservative Judaism Rabbi
Prologue p. 6
The Sabbath (1951)
“What a caterpillar calls the end of the world we call a butterfly.”
Eckhart Tolle (1948) German writer
Source: The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment
The Divine Commodity: Discovering A Faith Beyond Consumer Christianity (2009, Zondervan)
“Common sense in an uncommon degree is what the world calls wisdom.”
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) English poet, literary critic and philosopher
Source: Literary Remains, Vol. 1
“The world's continual breathing is what we hear and call silence.”
Clarice Lispector book The Passion According to G.H.
Source: The Passion According to G.H.
