Huston Smith Quotes

With mind distracted, never thinking, "Death is coming,"
To slave away on the pointless business of mundane life,
And then to come out empty-it is a tragic error. (116)
trans by Robert Thurman

The larger the island of knowledge, the longer the shoreline of wonder.

Institutions are not pretty. Show me a pretty government. Healing is wonderful, but the American Medical Association? Learning is wonderful, but universities? The same is true for religion... religion is institutionalized spirituality. - Mother Jones November/December 1997.

The disciples of Jesus “found themselves thinking that if divine goodness were to manifest itself in human form, this (he) is how it would behave… he invited people to see differently instead of telling them what to do or believe…he located the authority of his teaching in his hearer’s hearts, not in himself or God-as-removed.

Most of the book deals with things we already know yet never learn.

Muhammad adhered meticulously to the charter he forged for Medina, which - grounded as it was in the Quranic injunction, "Let there be no compulsion in religion" (2:256) - is arguably the first mandate for religious tolerance in human history.