Quotes by Huston Smith

About Huston Smith:

Huston Cummings Smith is a religious studies scholar in the United States. His book The World's Religions (originally titled The Religions of Man) has sold over two million copies and remains a popular introduction to comparative religion.
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The New Age movement looks like a mixed bag. I see much in it that seems good: It's optimistic; it's enthusiastic; it has the capacity for belief. On the debit side, I think one needs to distinguish between belief and credulity.

Huston Smith

Every society and religion has rules, for both have moral laws. And the essence of morality consists, as in art, of drawing the line somewhere.

Huston Smith

It's often difficult for us to act compassionately, but sacred art eases the difficulty by ennobling us.

Huston Smith

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

Huston Smith

Practice giving things away, not just things you don't care about, but things you do like. Remember, it is not the size of a gift, it is its quality and the amount of mental attachment you overcome that count. So don't bankrupt yourself on a momentar...

Huston Smith

The only power that can effect transformations of the order (of Jesus) is love. It remained for the 20th century to discover that locked within the atom is the energy of the sun itself. For this energy to be released, the atom must be bombarded from ...

Huston Smith

Never during its pilgrimage is the human spirit completely adrift and alone. From start to finish its nucleus is the Atman, the god-within... underlying its whirlpool of transient feelings, emotions, and delusions is the self-luminous, abiding point ...

Huston Smith

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...

Huston Smith

Whether things turn out for the better depends on what we do. We ought not spend our time masterminding the future, but recognize our marching orders: to do the best we can for history and the planet.

Huston Smith

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

Huston Smith

The faith I was born into formed me. I come from a missionary family - I grew up in China - and in my case, my religious upbringing was positive. Of course, not everyone has this experience. I know many of my students are what I have come to think of...

Huston Smith

Poetry is a special use of language that opens onto the real. The business of the poet is truth telling, which is why in the Celtic tradition no one could be a teacher unless he or she was a poet.

Huston Smith

The notion that Western religions are more rigid than those of Asia is overdrawn. Ours is the most permissive society history has ever known - almost the only thing that is forbidden now is to forbid - and Asian teachers and their progeny play up to ...

Huston Smith

No one in human history has given as much thought to the interweaving of altered states of consciousness and religion as I have.

Huston Smith

I don't have any fear of death. I do, however, have an inordinate fear of becoming dependent on other people. To me, that's the severest test, not death.

Huston Smith

I am critical of modernity giving science and technology a blank check as if it were the fountain of all truth. That is not true. And I think I may have introduced a word which has now caught on quite a bit, scientism. Science is good. It simply repo...

Huston Smith

I've spent the last 50 years or so steeping myself in the world's religions, and I've done my homework. I've gone to each of the world's eight great religions and sought out the most profound scholars I could find, and I've apprenticed myself to them...

Huston Smith

The faith I was born into formed me.

Huston Smith

God is defined by Jesus but not confined to Jesus.

Huston Smith

I am very orthodox in thinking that Jesus acted in his life the way God would have acted if God had assumed human form.

Huston Smith

Author Bio

  • NameHuston Smith
  • DescriptionReligious studies scholar
  • BornMay 31, 1919
  • CountryPeople's Republic Of China
  • ProfessionPhilosopher