“I do not need the written code of a spiritual belief to act like a decent human being.”
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Jim Butcher383
American author 1971Related quotes
“Being a decent human being will require effort and energy…”
David Nicholls book One Day
Source: One Day
“We are not human beings on a spiritual journey. We are spiritual beings on a human journey.”
Stephen R. Covey (1932–2012) American educator, author, businessman and motivational speaker
Pierre Teilhard De Chardin, in The Phenomenon of Man [Le Phénomène Humain] (1955); Covey quotes this in Living the 7 Habits : Stories of Courage and Inspiration (2000), p. 47
Variant: We are not human beings on a spiritual journey. We are spiritual beings on a human journey.
A paraphrase of De Chardin's statement which has also become misattributed to Covey.
Misattributed
Variant: We are not human beings having a spiritual experience; we are spiritual beings having a human experience.
“Human nature. I don’t like human nature, but I do like human beings.”
Ellen Glasgow book In This Our Life
Source: In This Our Life
“It is no use to preach to [children] if you do not act decently yourself.”
Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States
Speech to Holy Name Society, Oyster Bay, August 16, 1903 https://web.archive.org/web/20130210023816/http://www.trsite.org/content/pages/speaking-loudly <br class="br">1900s
Pierre Teilhard De Chardin (1881–1955) French philosopher and Jesuit priest
This is attributed to Pierre Teilhard de Chardin in The Joy of Kindness (1993), by Robert J. Furey, p. 138; but it is attributed to G. I. Gurdjieff in Beyond Prophecies and Predictions: Everyone's Guide To The Coming Changes (1993) by Moira Timms, p. 62; neither cite a source. It was widely popularized by Wayne Dyer, who often quotes it in his presentations, crediting it to Chardin, as does Stephen Covey in Living the 7 Habits : Stories of Courage and Inspiration (2000), p. 47. Such statements could be considered paraphrases of Hegel's dictum that matter is spirit fallen into a state of self-otherness. Or any number of thousands of similarly vague quotes by hundreds of predecessors.
Disputed
Variant: We are not human beings on a spiritual journey. We are spiritual beings on a human journey.
Variant: We are not human beings having a spiritual experience; we are spiritual beings having a human experience.