“Cat tongues are awesome." --Nellie Gomez, The 39 Clues, Beyond The Grave”

Source: One Minute Nonsense (1992), p. 134
Context: A religious belief… is not a statement about Reality, but a hint, a clue about something that is a mystery, beyond the grasp of human thought. In short, a religious belief is only a finger pointing to the moon. Some religious people never get beyond the study of the finger. Others are engaged in sucking it. Others yet use the finger to gouge their eyes out. These are the bigots whom religion has made blind. Rare indeed is the religionist who is sufficiently detached from the finger to see what it is indicating — these are those who, having gone beyond belief, are taken for blasphemers.

The Tragic Sense of Life (1913), X : Religion, the Mythology of the Beyond and the Apocatastasis
Context: We must needs believe in the other life, in the eternal life beyond the grave.... And we must needs believe in that other life, perhaps, in order that we may deserve it, in order that we may obtain it, for it may be that he neither deserves it nor will obtain it who does not passionately desire it above reason and, if need be, against reason.

The Kasîdah of Hâjî Abdû El-Yezdî (1870)

Man Is Not Alone : A Philosophy Of Religion (1951), Ch. 26 : The Pious Man; Our Destiny is to Aid
Context: The greatest problem is not how to continue but how to exalt our existence. The call for a life beyond the grave is presumptuous, if there is no cry for eternal life prior to our descending to the grave. Eternity is not perpetual future but perpetual presence. He has planted in us the seed of eternal life. The world to come is not only a hereafter but also a here-now.

My Religion (1884), Ch. 8
В чем моя вера? http://books.google.com/books?id=D-UOAQAAIAAJ&q=%22%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%B3%D0%B4%D0%B0+%D0%A5%D1%80%D0%B8%D1%81%D1%82%D0%BE%D1%81+%D0%BD%D0%B5+%D1%82%D0%BE%D0%BB%D1%8C%D0%BA%D0%BE+%D0%BB%D0%B8+%D0%BE%D0%B4%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%BC+%D1%81%D0%BB%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%BE%D0%BC+%D0%BD%D0%B5+%D1%83%D1%82%D0%B2%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%B6%D0%B4%D0%B0%D0%BB+%D0%BB%D0%B8%D1%87%D0%BD%D0%BE%D0%B5+%D0%B2%D0%BE%D1%81%D0%BA%D1%80%D0%B5%D1%81%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%B5+%D0%B8+%D0%B1%D0%B5%D1%81%D1%81%D0%BC%D0%B5%D1%80%D1%82%D0%B8%D0%B5+%D0%BB%D0%B8%D1%87%D0%BD%D0%BE%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B8+%D0%B7%D0%B0+%D0%B3%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B1%D0%BE%D0%BC%22&pg=PA391#v=onepage

Source: Epipsychidion (1821), l. 595

The Kasîdah of Hâjî Abdû El-Yezdî (1870), Note I : Hâjî Abdû, The Man
Context: The Hâjî regrets the excessive importance attached to a possible future state: he looks upon this as a psychical stimulant, a day dream, whose revulsion and reaction disorder waking life. The condition may appear humble and prosaic to those exalted by the fumes of Fancy, by a spiritual dram-drinking which, like the physical, is the pursuit of an ideal happiness. But he is too wise to affirm or to deny the existence of another world. For life beyond the grave there is no consensus of mankind… Even the instinctive sense of our kind is here dumb. We may believe what we are taught: we can know nothing. He would, therefore, cultivate that receptive mood which, marching under the shadow of mighty events, leads to the highest of goals, — the development of Humanity. With him suspension of judgment is a system.

IV, vii, 1.
Elegies