Secular Quotes - Page 17

• In our hyper-secular world, worship is still inevitable. But it is vital to remember that our gods don't choose us, we choose them.

  John Green

  World, Remember, Worship

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• A monk should surely love his books with humility, wishing their good and not the glory of his own curiosity; but what the temptation of adultery is for laymen and the yearning for riches is for secular ecclesiastics, the seduction of knowledge is for monks.

  Umberto Eco

  Book, Humility, Temptation

  Umberto Eco (1995). “Name of the Rose”, p.195, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• We used to build temples, and museums are about as close as secular society dares to go in facing up to the idea that a good building can change your life (and a bad one ruin it).

  Alain de Botton

  Museums, Secular Society, Ideas

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• If forgers and malefactors are put to death by the secular power, there is much more reason for excommunicating and even putting to death one convicted of heresy.

  Thomas Aquinas

  Powerful, Scary, Reason

  "Summa Theologica". Book by Thomas Aquinas, 1485.

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• It's surprising to me how many of my friends send Christmas cards, or holiday cards, including my atheist and secular friends.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Christmas, Atheist, Holiday

  "Christmas with Christopher Hitchens". Interview with Gregg LaGambina, www.avclub.com. December 20, 2007.

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• Back in the days when the market was a kind of secular god and all the world thrilled to behold the amazing powers of private capital, the idea of privatizing highways and airports and other bits of our transportation infrastructure made a certain kind of sense.

  Thomas Frank

  Airports, Ideas, World

  "Toll Roads Are Paved With Bad Intentions" by Thomas Frank, www.huffingtonpost.com. March 3, 2009.

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• The sad reality is that there are no purely domestic issues in Israel. Issues that would be dealt with by municipalities in other countries - such as how to deal with a dangerous bridge or how to resolve conflicts between religious and secular bus riders - become major international issues when they occur in Israel.

  Alan Dershowitz

  Country, Religious, Reality

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• Now the good of political life is a great political good. It is not a secular good specified by a comprehensive doctrine like those of Kant or Mill. You could characterize this political good as the good of free and equal citizens recognizing the duty of civility to one another: the duty to give citizens public reasons for one's political actions.

  John Rawls

  Giving, Political, Doctrine

  Interview with Bernard G. Prusak, www.commonwealmagazine.org. September 25, 1998.

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• A comprehensive doctrine, either religious or secular, aspires to cover all of life. I mean, if it's a religious doctrine, it talks about our relation to God and the universe; it has an ordering of all the virtues, not only political virtues but moral virtues as well, including the virtues of private life, and the rest. Now we may feel philosophically that it doesn't really cover everything, but it aims to cover everything, and a secular doctrine does also.

  John Rawls

  Religious, Mean, Political

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• The Organization of Afro-American Unity was an organization that was a secular group. It largely consisted of people that we would later call several years later Black Powerites, Black nationalists, progressives coming out of the Black freedom struggle, the northern students' movement, people - students, young people, professionals, workers, who were dedicated to Black activism and militancy, but outside of the context of Islam.

  Manning Marable

  Struggle, Years, Organization

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• The secular world is more spiritual than it thinks, just as the ecclesiastical world is more materialist than it cares to acknowledge.

  Lionel Blue

  Spiritual, Thinking, World

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• Literature can be divided into two large families: the religious and the secular one. The first reveals the origin of stupidity, the second follows its evolution.

  William C. Brown

  Religious, Two, Stupidity

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• Atheistic secular humanists should be removed from office and Christians should be elected...Government and true Christianity are inseparable.

  Robert Simonds

  Christian, Government, Office

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• If we look at Abdel Nasser in Egypt as an Arab leader, he was secular.

  Maajid Nawaz

  Egypt, Leader, Looks

  Source: www.abc.net.au

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• Some people seem to gravitate from one fundamentalism to another, from some kind of secular fundamentalism into a religious fundamentalism or the other way around, which is not very helpful.

  Peter L. Berger

  Religious, People, Way

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• Why is it that aggression in the name of God shocks secular liberal sensibilities, whereas the act of killing in the name of the secular nation, or of democracy, does not?

  Talal Asad

  Names, Democracy, Doe

  Talal Asad, Wendy Brown, Judith Butler, Saba Mahmood (2013). “Is Critique Secular?: Blasphemy, Injury, and Free Speech”, p.10

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• For democrats, it's as crucial to defend secular culture as to preserve secular law. And in fact the two projects are inseparable: When religion defines morality, the wall between church and state comes to be seen as immoral.

  Ellen Willis

  Wall, Law, Two

  "Freedom from Religion". "The Nation", February 19, 2001.

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• All people, even secular people, are seeing books on the market like The End of History.

  Tim LaHaye

  Book, People, Ends

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• Kerouac's books portray a hero and narrator free and easy, confident, sure of his rebellion against the American system. In reality, Jack was torn between Catholicism, Buddhism, and his own demon-driven pursuit of kicks, between spirit and flesh, between mom's house and the Beat coffeehouse, patriotism and subversion, men and women, society and solitude, carousing and meditation, sacred and profane, secular and divine. It's a miracle he survived as long as he did.

  Gerald Nicosia

  Mom, Hero, Book

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• A lot of people in the religious world believe that by secularizing, or viewing the changes as secular, such as dropping the beard and changing my appearance, they consider this to be a fall.

  Matisyahu

  Religious, Believe, Fall

  Interview with Michael Barata, www.marandapleasantmedia.com.

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• It wouldn't matter if every single President since Washington had been a Bible-toting, evangelical Christian. They weren't, of course, but even if they had been, it still would not change the secular foundation of our republic. Christians like to quote various Presidents or Supreme Court Justices who (quite incorrectly) have referred to our "Christian nation." But what do those quotes prove? I could quote Richard Nixon, but would that prove that ours was intended to be a nation of crooks?

  Judith Hayes

  Christian, Justice, Atheism

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• How can there be peace when drunkards, drug dealers, communists, atheists, New Age worshipers of Satan, secular humanists, oppressive dictators, greedy money changers, revolutionary assassins, adulterers, and homosexuals are on top?

  Pat Robertson

  Atheist, Drug, Age

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• I'm from a small town where everybody always has something to say - you shouldn't sing secular music, you shouldn't do this or do that. A ton of "shouldn'ts."

  Kelly Clarkson

  Secular Music, Towns, Small Town

  Source: www.goodhousekeeping.com

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• I believe that if Israel were to put an end to the settlements in the West Bank tomorrow, as it did in Gaza, there would still be reluctance on the part of the Palestinian Authority to recognize Israel's right to exist as a Jewish secular democracy.

  Alan Dershowitz

  Believe, Israel, Democracy

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• When a woman starts out in the world on a mission, secular or religious, she should leave her feminine charms at home.

  Jane Swisshelm

  Religious, Home, World

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