Walking uplifts the spirit. Breathe out the poisons of tension, stress, and worry; breathe in the power of God. Send forth little silent prayers of goodwill toward those you meet. Walk with a sense of being a part of a vast universe. Consider the thousands of miles of earth beneath your feet; think of the limitless expanse of space above your head. Walk in awe, wonder, and humility. Walk at all times of day. In the early morning when the world is just waking up. Late at night under the stars. Along a busy city street at noontime.
—Wilferd Arlan Peterson (1900–95) American Author
Religion is for people who are scared to go to hell. Spirituality is for people who have already been there.
—Bonnie Raitt (b.1949) American Singer, Guitarist
What spirit is so empty and blind, that it cannot recognize the fact that the foot is more noble than the shoe, and skin more beautiful that the garment with which it is clothed?
—Michelangelo (1475–1564) Italian Painter, Sculptor, Architect, Poet, Engineer
Transformation literally means going beyond your form.
—Wayne Dyer (1940–2015) American Self-Help Author
If wrinkles must be written upon our brows, let them not be written upon the heart. The spirit should never grow old.
—James A. Garfield (1831–81) American Head of State, Lawyer, Educator
You cannot have a proud and chivalrous spirit if your conduct is mean and paltry; for whatever a man’s actions are, such must be his spirit.
—Demosthenes (384–322 BCE) Greek Statesman, Orator
He whom God has touched will always be a being apart: he is, whatever he may do, a stranger among men; he is marked by a sign.
—Ernest Renan (1823–92) French Philosopher, Historian
The fact that I can plant a seed and it becomes a flower, share a bit of knowledge and it becomes another’s, smile at someone and receive a smile in return, are to me continual spiritual exercises.
—Leo Buscaglia (1924–98) American Motivational Speaker
The myths have always condemned those who “looked back.” Condemned them, whatever the paradise may have been which they were leaving. Hence this shadow over each departure from your decision.
—Dag Hammarskjold (1905–61) Swedish Statesman, UN Diplomat
The spiritual force transcends all.—I feel this great creative and spiritual force within me that is greater than faith, greater than ambition, greater than confidence, greater than determination, greater than vision. It is all these combined. My brain becomes magnetized with this dominating force which I hold in my hand.
—Bruce Lee (1940–73) American Martial Artist, Actor, Philosopher
In the faces of men and women I see God, and in my own face in the glass, I find letters from God dropped in the street, and every one is signed by God’s name. And I leave them where they are, for I know that wherever I go, others will punctually come for ever and ever.
—Walt Whitman (1819–92) American Poet, Essayist, Journalist
In order to experience everyday spirituality, we need to remember that we are spiritual beings spending some time in a human body.
—Barbara De Angelis (b.1951) American Self-Help Author
Physical strength is measured by what we can carry; spiritual by what we can bear.
—Unknown
What she didn’t understand, she being spiritual and seeing religion as spirit, was that it took religion to save me from the spirit world, from orbiting the earth like Lucifer and the angels, that it took nothing less than touching the thread off the misty interstates and eating Christ himself to make me mortal man again and let me inhabit my own flesh and love her in the morning.
—Walker Percy (1916–90) American Novelist
People see his pleasure-ground; him no one sees at all.
—The Upanishads Sacred Books of Hinduism
There are no mundane things outside of Buddhism, and there is no Buddhism outside of mundane things.
—Buddhist Teaching
There are only two forces in the world, the sword and the spirit. In the long run the sword will always be conquered by the spirit.
—Napoleon I (1769–1821) Emperor of France
Our intellect has achieved the most tremendous things, but in the meantime our spiritual dwelling has fallen into disrepair.
—Carl Gustav Jung (1875–1961) Swiss Psychologist, Psychiatrist, Philosopher
Nothing is more repulsive than a furtively prurient spirituality; it is just as unsavory as gross sensuality.
—Carl Gustav Jung (1875–1961) Swiss Psychologist, Psychiatrist, Philosopher
O Krishna, the stillness of divine union which you describe is beyond my comprehension. How can the mind, which is so restless, attain lasting peace? Krishna, the mind is restless, turbulent, powerful, violent; trying to control it is like trying to tame the wind.
—The Bhagavad Gita Hindu Scripture
Without the spiritual world the material world is a disheartening enigma.
—Joseph Joubert (1754–1824) French Writer, Moralist
The great awareness comes slowly, piece by piece. The path of spiritual growth is a path of lifelong learning. The experience of spiritual power is basically a joyful one.
—M. Scott Peck (1936–2005) American Psychiatrist, Author
The foundations of a person are not in matter but in spirit.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
The most spiritual human beings, assuming they are the most courageous, also experience by far the most painful tragedies: but it is precisely for this reason that they honor life, because it brings against them its most formidable weapons.
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German Philosopher, Scholar, Writer
They understand but a little who understand only what can be explained.
—Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach (1830–1916) Austrian Novelist
Don’t you believe that there is in man a deep so profound as to be hidden even to him in whom it is?
—Augustine of Hippo (354–430) Roman-African Christian Philosopher
Sages speak of the immutable Tree of Life, with its tape root above and its branches below.
—The Bhagavad Gita Hindu Scripture
The sensual and spiritual are linked together by a mysterious bond, sensed by our emotions, though hidden from our eyes. To this double nature of the visible and invisible world—to the profound longing for the latter, coupled with the feeling of the sweet necessity for the former, we owe all sound and logical systems of philosophy, truly based on the immutable principles of our nature, just as from the same source arise the most senseless enthusiasms.
—Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767–1835) German Philosopher, Linguist, Statesman
Spiritual power begins by directing animal power to other than egoistic ends.
—John Ruskin (1819–1900) English Writer, Art Critic
I don’t have any idea of who or what God is. But I do believe in some great spiritual power. I feel it particularly when I’m out in nature. It’s just something that’s bigger and stronger than what I am or what anybody is. I feel it. And it’s enough for me.
—Jane Goodall (b.1934) British Primatologist, Conservationist
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