We are most creative and sense other possibilities that transcend our ordinary experience when we leave ourselves behind.
Karen ArmstrongIf it is not tempered by compassion, and empathy, reason can lead men and women into a moral void.
Karen ArmstrongEvery fundamentalist movement I've studied in Judaism, Christianity and Islam is convinced at some gut, visceral level that secular liberal society wants to wipe out religion.
Karen ArmstrongIronically, the first thing that appealed to me about Islam was its pluralism. The fact that the Koran praises all the great prophets of the past.
Karen ArmstrongGod [is] not the exclusive property of any one tradition. The divine light [cannot] be confined to a single lamp, belonging to the East or the West, but enlightens all human beings.
Karen ArmstrongYet while nature is in constant flux, we always go against the grain and try to freeze our ideas and experiences and make them absolute. It is egotism that makes us identify with one opinion rather than another, become quarrelsome and unkind, say *this* could not mean *that*, and think we have a duty to change others to suit ourselves.
Karen Armstrong