#om

After I left the convent, for 15 years I was worn out with religion, I wanted nothing whatever to do with it. I felt disgusted with it. If I saw someone reading a religious book on a train, I'd think, how awful. ↗

— Karen Armstrong

#awful #book #convent #disgusted #felt

Compassion is not a popular virtue. Very often when I talk to religious people, and mention how important it is that compassion is the key, that it's the sine-qua-non of religion, people look kind of balked, and stubborn sometimes, as much to say, what's the point of having religion if you can't disapprove of other people? ↗

— Karen Armstrong

#disapprove #having #how #i #important

In the holy city of Mecca, violence of any kind was forbidden. From the moment they left home, pilgrims were not permitted to carry weapons, to swat an insect or speak an angry word, a discipline that introduced them to a new way of living. ↗

— Karen Armstrong

#any #carry #city #discipline #forbidden

Pain is something that's common to human life. When we ignore it, we aren't engaging in the whole reality, and the pain begins to fester. ↗

— Karen Armstrong

#common #engaging #fester #human #human life

Religious people often prefer to be right rather than compassionate. Often, they don't want to give up their egotism. They want their religion to endorse their ego, their identity. ↗

— Karen Armstrong

#ego #egotism #endorse #give #identity

Well, logos is science or reason, something that helps us to function practically and effectively in the world, and it must therefore be closely in tune and reflect accurately the realities of the world around us. ↗

— Karen Armstrong

#around #closely #effectively #function #helps

When violence becomes imbedded in a region, then this affects everything. It affects your dreams, your fantasies and relationships, and your religion becomes violent, too. ↗

— Karen Armstrong

#becomes #dreams #everything #fantasies #our dreams

Pain is temporary. It may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year, but eventually it will subside and something else will take its place. If I quit, however, it lasts forever. ↗

— Lance Armstrong

#else #eventually #forever #hour #however

There's no rule, no law, no regulation that says you can't come back. So I have every right to come back. ↗

— Lance Armstrong

#come #every #i #law #regulation

Through my illness I learned rejection. I was written off. That was the moment I thought, Okay, game on. No prisoners. Everybody's going down. ↗

— Lance Armstrong

#everybody #game #going #i #illness