Spirituality Funny Quotes

We've searched our database for all the quotes and captions related to Spirituality Funny. Here they are! All 100 of them:

I’ve been fighting to be who I am all my life. What’s the point of being who I am, if I can’t have the person who was worth all the fighting for?
Stephanie Lennox (I Don't Remember You)
Rejection is an opportunity for your selection.
Bernard Branson
My heart skipped a beat and then flat-out tripped over itself and fell on its face. Then my heart stood up, brushed itself off, took a deep breath and announced: "I want a spiritual teacher.
Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love)
that's the funny thing about mazes: what's baffling on the ground begins to makes sense when you can begin to rise above it, the better to understand your history and fix yourself". (p. 717)
Wally Lamb (The Hour I First Believed)
A saint has control over his anger and itches.
Merlin Franco (Saint Richard Parker)
Love is about bottomless empathy, born out of the heart’s revelation that another person is every bit as real as you are. And this is why love, as I understand it, is always specific. Trying to love all of humanity may be a worthy endeavor, but, in a funny way, it keeps the focus on the self, on the self’s own moral or spiritual well-being. Whereas, to love a specific person, and to identify with his or her struggles and joys as if they were your own, you have to surrender some of your self.
Jonathan Franzen (Farther Away)
If you're stressing over happiness, you're doing it wrong!
Shannon L. Alder
The revelation that I’m destined to meet many virgins from the East and the promise of limitless love they hold in their bosoms gives me strength, fortitude, and tenacity—and the wisdom to know that all three are synonyms.
Merlin Franco (Saint Richard Parker)
I realize three things: one, I want a tantric massage, but I don’t want to be nude; two, I want the union of masculine and feminine powers, and I’ve got a hooker with whom I don’t want to have sex; three, I’m confused and don’t know what I want.
Merlin Franco (Saint Richard Parker)
Do you know where your breakthrough begins? Your breakthrough begins where your excuses ends.
Patience Johnson (Why Does an Orderly God Allow Disorder)
Do not think that enlightenment is going to make you special, it’s not. If you feel special in any way, then enlightenment has not occurred. I meet a lot of people who think they are enlightened and awake simply because they have had a very moving spiritual experience. They wear their enlightenment on their sleeve like a badge of honor. They sit among friends and talk about how awake they are while sipping coffee at a cafe. The funny thing about enlightenment is that when it is authentic, there is no one to claim it. Enlightenment is very ordinary; it is nothing special. Rather than making you more special, it is going to make you less special. It plants you right in the center of a wonderful humility and innocence. Everyone else may or may not call you enlightened, but when you are enlightened the whole notion of enlightenment and someone who is enlightened is a big joke. I use the word enlightenment all the time; not to point you toward it but to point you beyond it. Do not get stuck in enlightenment.
Adyashanti
Isn’t it funny we talk about mind control but we can’t even control our own mind?
Todd Perelmuter (Spiritual Words to Live by : 81 Daily Wisdoms and Meditations to Transform Your Life)
It's so funny being a Christian musician. It always scares me when people think so highly of Christian music, Contemporary Christian music especially. Because I kinda go, I know a lot of us, and we don't know jack about anything. Not that I don't want you to buy our records and come to our concerts. I sure do. But you should come for entertainment. If you really want spiritual nourishment, you should go to church...you should read the Scriptures.
Rich Mullins
What a funny old world, Thinking they could cage her, & make her fear her future; Apprently they didn't know her well enough, The cage, gave her wings to fly.
Nikki Rowe
Remember, the village idiot was the spiritual man who built the ark and saved his family. Keep being you and never give up marching to the beat of your own drum!
Shannon L. Alder
Naked people look funny when they are for-real naked, outside-a-magazine naked.
Donald Miller (Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality (Paperback))
She, of all people, knew the sacred trust that word -- "librarian" -- implied. Because a librarian was supposed to to be a spiritual, intellectual mentor who kept your secrets and didn't give you a funny look when you checked out a book on the care and feeding of pythons...A librarian opened up new doors for you, intellectually, too, without shoving you through them. A librarian was important.
Beth Fantaskey (Buzz Kill)
Perhaps her faults and follies, the unhappiness she had suffered, were not entirely vain if she could follow the path that now she dimly discerned before her, not the path that kind funny old Waddington had spoken of that led nowhither, but the path those dear nuns at the convent followed so humbly, the path that led to peace.
W. Somerset Maugham (The Painted Veil)
It's funny how guilty people start to question your spirituality and education only because they have nothing to say that will justify their faults.
J.B. Albano
Angels are good not simply because they see bad as bad, but also because they see bad as corny.
Criss Jami (Healology)
There is a miracle in your mess, don't let the mess make you miss the miracle.
Patience Johnson (Why Does an Orderly God Allow Disorder)
Sometimes you just gotta wear the tinfoil hat.
Gary Hopkins
Pastors are starting to get wily. When people tell my friend, 'I'm not being fed,' he replies, 'I'm prefectly happy to spoon feed my one-year-old. But if I'm still spoon-feeding him when he's five, we've got a problem. Here's a fork. Feed yourself.
Jon Acuff
I'm not everyone's cup of tea, because I'm a kick butt cappuccino with extra milk fluff and chocolate sprinkles!
Jennifer White - Strong Heart Awakening
The more thou search, the more thou shall marvel.
COMPTON GAGE
Everything is a reflection of the condition of your own heart ... And so looking at the world is like looking in a funny kind of mirror
Michael Roach (How Yoga Works)
To plan is to hope … without feeling passive.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana (P for Pessimism: A Collection of Funny yet Profound Aphorisms)
One of the Christian's biggest fears is appearing 'too Christian'. God forbid, because that's often characterized as god-awful! We want to be one, but without being 'one of them'.
Criss Jami (Killosophy)
Be careful because God's gifts alone are not able to give you joy; God's gift can only bring you joy when they are joined with your gratitude.
Patience Johnson (Why Does an Orderly God Allow Disorder)
All the failures in my life freed me from all my fears so that I can succeed.
Patience Johnson (Why Does an Orderly God Allow Disorder)
We have glorified wealth and freedom so much that it is impossible for most of us to truly believe that a man can truly be happy in a shack or within the confines of a prison cell.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
If one million of you give assent to the one thousand who participate in the murder of a child, then one million of you are a million times guilty.
COMPTON GAGE
He wasn’t Ringo, though. He was more like Paul. Maureen was Ringo, except she wasn’t very funny. I was George, except I wasn’t shy, or spiritual. Martin was John, except he wasn’t talented or cool. Thinking about it, maybe we were more like another group with four people in it.
Nick Hornby (A Long Way Down)
Sometimes what not to do is more important than what to do. Sometimes when you are in crisis, when frustration are high or when you are under pressure, what you don't do is more important than what you do. Don't be afraid. ....
Patience Johnson (Why Does an Orderly God Allow Disorder)
Life is a mighty joke that is not meant to be funny.
Janvier Chouteu-Chando (Disciples of Fortune)
Justice is about harmony... revenge is about you making yourself feel better.
COMPTON GAGE
The harder you search the more troubled you become.
COMPTON GAGE
No crime is a means to an end. No crime can be rationalized.
COMPTON GAGE
If you ask me I think the greatest breakthrough each and everyone of us need is not on finance, marriage, work, relationship, own house, car but self. The first breakthrough should start from being selfish.
Patience Johnson (Why Does an Orderly God Allow Disorder)
Isn’t it funny how we make rational excuses for being out of alignment? We say, “Well, this ____ and that ____ happened, so it makes perfect sense for me to be feeling like this ____ and wanting to do this ____.” Yet, to this day, I have never met a happy person who adheres to those excuses. In fact, each time I – or anyone else – decide to give in to “rational excuses” that justify feeling bad – it’s interesting that only further suffering is the result. There is never a good enough reason for us to be out of alignment with peace. Sure, we can go there and make choices that dim our lights… and that is fine; there certainly is purpose for it and the contrast gives us lessons to learn… yet if we’re aware of what we are doing and we’re ready to let go of the suffering – then why go there at all? It’s like beating a dead horse. Been there, done that… so why do we keep repeating it? Pain is going to happen; it’s inevitable in this human experience, yet it is often so brief. When we make those excuses, what happens is: we pick up that pain and begin to carry it with us into the next day… and the next day… into next week… maybe next month… and some of us even carry it for years or to our graves! Forgive, let it go! It is NOT worth it! It is NEVER worth it. There is never a good enough reason for us to pick up that pain and carry it with us. There is never a good enough reason for us to be out of alignment with peace. Unforgiveness hurts you; it hurts others, so why even go there? Why even promote pain? Why say painful things to yourself or others? Why think pain? Just let it go! Whenever I look back on painful things or feel pain today, I know it is my EGO that drives me to “go there.” The EGO likes to have the last word, it likes to feel superior, it likes to make others feel less than in hopes that it will make itself (me) feel better about my insecurities. Maybe if I hurt them enough, they will feel the pain I felt over what they did to me. It’s only fair! It’s never my fault; it’s always someone else’s. There is a twisted sense of pleasure I get from feeling this way, and my EGO eats it right up. YET! With awareness that continues to grow and expand each day, I choose to not feed my pain (EGO) or even go there. I still feel it at times, of course, so I simply acknowledge it and then release it. I HAVE power and choice over my speech and actions. I do not need to ever “go there” again. It’s my choice; it’s your choice. So it’s about damn time we start realizing this. We are not victims of our impulses or emotions; we have the power to control them, and so it’s time to stop acting like we don’t. It’s time to relinquish the excuses.
Alaric Hutchinson (Living Peace: Essential Teachings For Enriching Life)
Gratitude without practicing maybe like practicing a faith without good work. A grateful heart is not enough without a grateful habit; because your joy is not produced by what you put in your heart but by habit you put in your life.
Patience Johnson (Why Does an Orderly God Allow Disorder)
Seek no forgiveness from men in robes. It is just a simple change of clothes. Otherwise, they are like most of us - assholes, or dopes.
Fakeer Ishavardas
Don't worry if you've been labeled as weird. Who wants to be classed as normal in an insane world?
Jennifer White - Strong Heart Awakening
The sooner the jihadis go up to their imagined #heaven, the sooner our earth would be a heaven.
Fakeer Ishavardas
Thy heart had gone too far in this world, and think thou to comprehend the way of the most High?
COMPTON GAGE
Even so have I given the womb of the earth to those that be sown in it in their times.
COMPTON GAGE
As for you, you're unwise: how may you then speak of these things whereof thou ask you?
COMPTON GAGE
They that be born in the strength of youth are of one fashion, and they that are born in the time of age, when the womb fail, are otherwise.
COMPTON GAGE
Faith is the substance of things hoped for, evidence of things not seen.
COMPTON GAGE
Iniquity shall be increased above that which now thou see, or that thou hast heard long ago.
COMPTON GAGE
The land, that thou see now to have root, shall thou see wasted suddenly.
COMPTON GAGE
Go thy way, and tell my people, the people of thy Lord God what manner of things, and how great wonders of the Lord thy God, thou hast seen.
COMPTON GAGE
From the beginning, look, what thou desires to see, it shall be shew thee.
COMPTON GAGE
An extreme fearfulness moves through all your body, and your mind is troubled more.
COMPTON GAGE
If you can't see the assets in you, it will be hard for you to export it to the world. Recognise who you are and the world will recognise you.
Patience Johnson (Why Does an Orderly God Allow Disorder)
You will always end up in frustration whenever you try to produce outside your purpose.
Patience Johnson (Why Does an Orderly God Allow Disorder)
All my pains has always increased my sense of purpose.
Patience Johnson (Why Does an Orderly God Allow Disorder)
Whenever you are in transition it is always important to choose the words that you use. You call it crises in your life and I call it transition.
Patience Johnson (Why Does an Orderly God Allow Disorder)
Be careful the mistake of yesterday always lives with tomorrow.
Patience Johnson (Why Does an Orderly God Allow Disorder)
God is not interested in helping you finding out why you are in a mess, He is interested in fixing it.
Patience Johnson (Why Does an Orderly God Allow Disorder)
What you see and what you listen to will determine how high you will go.
Patience Johnson (Why Does an Orderly God Allow Disorder)
The forgiveness of God flows through me and because I am forgiven, I can forgive.
Patience Johnson
Freedom comes from focus, focus brings freedom. Focus on fear you will always be in prison, focus on faith and is nothing the world can keep you knocked down.
Patience Johnson (Why Does an Orderly God Allow Disorder)
If one thousand of you participate in the murder of one child, then one thousand of you are a thousand times guilty.
COMPTON GAGE
Weigh thou therefore their wickedness now in the balance, and theirs also that dwell the world; and so shall thy name no where be found anymore.
COMPTON GAGE
Hear me, and I will instruct thee; hearken to the thing that I say, and I shall tell thee more.
COMPTON GAGE
Pleasure is often felt through the tongue or genitals as an attempt to distract oneself from the pain one is feeling through the heart.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana (P for Pessimism: A Collection of Funny yet Profound Aphorisms)
To chase pleasure is to be chased by pain.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana (P for Pessimism: A Collection of Funny yet Profound Aphorisms)
She probably thinks the spiritual path is a new style of pavers available at Bunnings.
Pj Mayhem (Call me Kismet)
If your imaginary buddy 'up there' and his book and ism tell you to hate and kill people of another #faith and #religion, then, this non-existent f****r's mind is as little as his pecker.
Fakeer Ishavardas
If negative emotions have gain access into your heart, it is because you have given it attention. If memories of pain and hurt dominates your heart, it is because you gave them attention. How can a memory hurt you when it has only happened? It can only hurt you when you give it attention.
Patience Johnson (Why Does an Orderly God Allow Disorder)
What is unfair is, not life, but our demanding—as microscopic a part of life and as unnecessary to life as we are—that life happen as per our desires, which are always selfish … and almost always petty.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana (P for Pessimism: A Collection of Funny yet Profound Aphorisms)
The poor Sufi dressed in rags walked into a jewelry store owned by a rich merchant and asked him, "Do you know how you’re going to die." And the Sufi said, "I do.""How?" asked the merchant. And the Sufi lay down, crossed his arms, said, "Like this," and died, whereupon the merchant promptly gave up his store to live a life of poverty in pursuit of the kind of spiritual wealth the dead Sufi had acquired.
John Green (Looking for Alaska)
Sense of humor seems to come from all-pervading joy, joy which has room to expand into a completely open situation because it is not involved with the battle between “this” and “that.” Joy develops into the panoramic situation of seeing or feeling the whole ground, the open ground. This open situation has no hint of limitation, of imposed solemnity. And if you do try to treat life as a “serious business,” if you try to impose solemnity upon life as though everything is a big deal, then it is funny. Why such a big deal?
Chögyam Trungpa (Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism)
Most people do not mind having a house that is smaller and/or a car that is cheaper than their neighbours’, as long as they each earn and have more money than their neighbours, and, equally important, their neighbours know that.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
In the grave the chambers of souls are like the womb of a woman: For like as a woman that travails make haste to escape the necessity of the travail: even so do these places haste to deliver those things that are committed unto them.
COMPTON GAGE
The greatest futility! says the congregator, "The greatest futility! Everything is futile!" What does a person gain from all his hard work- At which he toils under the sun? A generation goes and another cometh forth, but the earth remains the same.
COMPTON GAGE
I'm a serious sort of fella. But don't tell me your pal up in the sky exists, and mine does not. Then, my middle finger gets offended! For, my buddy up there nowhere, Mr. NOT, too insists without proof, that he is. Same as your god. Is Mr. NOT nuts? If he is, are you not?
Fakeer Ishavardas
Religion is a totalitarian belief. It is the wish to be a slave. It is the desire that there be an unalterable, unchallengeable, tyrannical authority who can convict you of thought crime while you are asleep, who can subject you to total surveillance around the clock every waking and sleeping minute of your life, before you're born and, even worse and where the real fun begins, after you're dead. A celestial North Korea. Who wants this to be true? Who but a slave desires such a ghastly fate? I've been to North Korea. It has a dead man as its president, Kim Jong-Il is only head of the party and head of the army. He's not head of the state. That office belongs to his deceased father, Kim Il-Sung. It's a necrocracy, a thanatocracy. It's one short of a trinity I might add. The son is the reincarnation of the father. It is the most revolting and utter and absolute and heartless tyranny the human species has ever evolved. But at least you can fucking die and leave North Korea!
Christopher Hitchens
The open door is never behind you; the open door is always before you. Quit looking at your past life and mistakes. Look unto Jesus who is the Author and Perfector of our faith. Your open door is not in the opportunity you missed ten years ago, it is not in some stuffs behind you that you can't get back. You can't gain your access by giving attention to your past life. Your past days are behind you and what God has for you is in front of you. Just pay attention.
Patience Johnson (Why Does an Orderly God Allow Disorder)
You can't love me if you don't love you, you can't think of nothing to do with me if you can't think of nothing to do with yourself, stop feeling sorry for yourself and tidy up, clean up the apartment until you get a house, do that job until you build your own company. Look at what you have and think on how to make it better.
Patience Johnson (Why Does an Orderly God Allow Disorder)
I need to go get ready to leave. Will you be okay?" I start making my way to the stairs, but Briston practically cries out for me to stop. "Wait! You're just going to leave? What if, I don't know, what if the vampire gets all blood crazy and kills everyone in the neighborhood?" "Well then, I'll count myself lucky I wasn't here.
Brandy Nacole (Broken Faith (Spiritual Discord, #1))
Joy develops into the panoramic situation of seeing or feeling the whole ground, the open ground. This open situation has no hint of limitation, of imposed solemnity. And if you do try to treat life as a “serious business,” if you try to impose solemnity upon life as though everything is a big deal, then it is funny. Why such a big deal?
Chögyam Trungpa (Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism)
If your god is more screwed up than you, then, by Jove, how cuckoo must be you!
Fakeer Ishavardas
Little people make tall claims. As being this-that avatar or messiah. Some even say they're God. Well, if they are, I'm their grand-pop.
Fakeer Ishavardas
Man shall not live on bread alone, it doesn’t have enough protein.
Paul Uponi (Muscular Christianity: A Case for Spiritual and Physical Fitness)
Children throw tantrums because they've imagined their 'father in heaven' does so. And because, their inherited religious book has, in written, shown them so.
Fakeer Ishavardas
You are hereby warned that any movement on your part not explicitly endorsed by verbal authorization on my part may pose a direct physical risk to you, as well as consequential psychological and possibly, depending on your personal belief system, spiritual risks ensuing from your personal reaction to said physical risk. Any movement on your part constitutes an implicit and irrevocable acceptance of such risk," the first MetaCop says. There is a little speaker on his belt, simultaneously translating all of this into Spanish and Japanese. "Or as we used to say," the other MetaCop says, "freeze, sucker!" "Under provisions of The Mews at Windsor Heights Code, we are authorized to enforce law, national security concerns, and societal harmony on said territory also. A treaty between The Mews at Windsor Heights and White Columns authorizes us to place you in temporary custody until your status as an Investigatory Focus has been resolved." "Your ass is busted," the second MetaCop says. "As your demeanor has been nonaggressive and you carry no visible weapons, we are not authorized to employ heroic measures to ensure your cooperation," the first MetaCop says. "You stay cool and we'll stay cool," the second MetaCop says. "However, we are equipped with devices, including but not limited to projectile weapons, which, if used, may pose an extreme and immediate threat to your health and well-being." "Make one funny move and we'll blow your head off," the second MetaCop says.
Neal Stephenson (Snow Crash)
CALVIN: I don't WANNA take a bath! I don't WANNA take a bath! You can't make me! CALVIN (As mom carries him to the tub): Aghh! Leggo! Leggo!! No No No No No No No! Put me down! CALVIN (Now in the tub): I wish I was dead! I hate you all! I hate everything. AARRGGHHH! MOM (Dripping wet. Talking to her husband.): Whenever I hear about people trying to rediscover the "child within," I want to scream.
Bill Watterson (The Days Are Just Packed (Calvin and Hobbes, #8))
Maybe what you need in your life is not the next level of accomplishment or the next level of accumulation but the next level of appreciation for what you have; that will set the stage to make a space for what you will accumulate in the future. ( a bit deep) Simply put thank God for now before setting the goal for tomorrow because if you grow in gifts and didn't grow in gratitude, you have gained nothing.
Patience Johnson (Why Does an Orderly God Allow Disorder)
If you seriously believe that your imaginary guy up in the sky told you to kill people of a differing faith and religion, your illusory pal is a dickhead. And of course and therefore, analogically speaking, so are you, shithead.
Fakeer Ishavardas
For now, the Simple Daily Practice means doing ONE thing every day. Try any one of these things each day: A) Sleep eight hours. B) Eat two meals instead of three. C) No TV. D) No junk food. E) No complaining for one whole day. F) No gossip. G) Return an e-mail from five years ago. H) Express thanks to a friend. I) Watch a funny movie or a stand-up comic. J) Write down a list of ideas. The ideas can be about anything. K) Read a spiritual text. Any one that is inspirational to you. The Bible, The Tao te Ching, anything you want. L) Say to yourself when you wake up, “I’m going to save a life today.” Keep an eye out for that life you can save. M) Take up a hobby. Don’t say you don’t have time. Learn the piano. Take chess lessons. Do stand-up comedy. Write a novel. Do something that takes you out of your current rhythm. N) Write down your entire schedule. The schedule you do every day. Cross out one item and don’t do that anymore. O) Surprise someone. P) Think of ten people you are grateful for. Q) Forgive someone. You don’t have to tell them. Just write it down on a piece of paper and burn the paper. It turns out this has the same effect in terms of releasing oxytocin in the brain as actually forgiving them in person. R) Take the stairs instead of the elevator. S) I’m going to steal this next one from the 1970s pop psychology book Don’t Say Yes When You Want to Say No: when you find yourself thinking of that special someone who is causing you grief, think very quietly, “No.” If you think of him and (or?) her again, think loudly, “No!” Again? Whisper, “No!” Again, say it. Louder. Yell it. Louder. And so on. T) Tell someone every day that you love them. U) Don’t have sex with someone you don’t love. V) Shower. Scrub. Clean the toxins off your body. W) Read a chapter in a biography about someone who is an inspiration to you. X) Make plans to spend time with a friend. Y) If you think, “Everything would be better off if I were dead,” then think, “That’s really cool. Now I can do anything I want and I can postpone this thought for a while, maybe even a few months.” Because what does it matter now? The planet might not even be around in a few months. Who knows what could happen with all these solar flares. You know the ones I’m talking about. Z) Deep breathing. When the vagus nerve is inflamed, your breathing becomes shallower. Your breath becomes quick. It’s fight-or-flight time! You are panicking. Stop it! Breathe deep. Let me tell you something: most people think “yoga” is all those exercises where people are standing upside down and doing weird things. In the Yoga Sutras, written in 300 B.C., there are 196 lines divided into four chapters. In all those lines, ONLY THREE OF THEM refer to physical exercise. It basically reads, “Be able to sit up straight.” That’s it. That’s the only reference in the Yoga Sutras to physical exercise. Claudia always tells me that yogis measure their lives in breaths, not years. Deep breathing is what keeps those breaths going.
James Altucher (Choose Yourself)
When you find another person annoying, sexually attractive, or inadvertently funny, you are experiencing the percolations of System 1. The heroic efforts you make to conceal these feelings out of politeness are the work of System 2.
Sam Harris (Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion)
It’s a funny irony, really, and one most humans seem to miss. When you manifest light, and allow your spirit to shine, you hurt no one, and your expression of joy is pure, but when you use your personality to purposely outshine another, you live under a shroud of darkness instead.
Sean Patrick Brennan (The Angel's Guide to Taking Human Form)
I have always been fascinated by youth. This fire that makes us feel glorious, insolent, immortal. I will have to come to terms with it - everything has been reduced to ashes. (I tried in vain not to burn myself in the way.) I believe that the deep tenderness I feel for man comes from the fact that he is so full of certainty – yet, he doubts all the time. It is a funny paradox. He is constantly misled. He gives great importance to things that do not have any, and misses those which have. I would like to be like a flower. Going through life, just like this, regardless of whether I will be born again or if anyone will remember my beauty. Just passing by like this, to make the world a little more beautiful, or a little more breathable, for a little while. I would like to be a flower of those in the bouquets for the hospitals. Of those who are plucked to die near those who are going to die. Or those who are just born. So that we can watch life together for a moment, as long as it is there. To die because I am beautiful and I represent life. To die because the love of the flower never offers itself as a trophy, for the love of the flower is always humble. And I love to love with humility. We should always love with humility.
Emmanuelle Soni-Dessaigne
I shut my eyes and concentrated on the sun, and on feeling it warm my skin. On pleasure. Hedon. The Greek god. Or idol, as he should probably be called seeing as I was on hallowed ground. It's pretty arrogant, calling all other gods, apart from the one you've come up with, idols. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Every dictator's command to his subjects, of course. The funny thing was that Christians couldn't see it themselves. They didn't see the mechanism, the regenerative, self-fulfilling, self-aggrandising aspect which meant that a superstition like this could survive for two thousand years, and in which the key--salvation--was restricted to those who were fortunate enough to have been born in a space of time which was a merest blink of the eye in human history, and who also happened to live on the only little bit of the planet that ever got to hear the commandment and were able to formulate an opinion about the concise sales pitch ("Paradise?").
Jo Nesbø (Midnight Sun (Blood on Snow, #2))
Astrology is superstition. A remnant of the ignorant dark ages, when people knew nothing about how the world works. They believed the earth is flat and the center of the universe. Astrology might have made sense a long time ago, when people didn't know any better. Back then people believed that the stars were gods, with names like Zeus or Mars, the God of war, who had nothing better to do than to watch us down here on earth, and fuck with us. And gods have superpowers. So it would make sense for gods to be able to influence our lives or our decisions. Back then it sounded like there was an internal logic to it all. But nowadays we know better. Now we know that the earth is not flat and not the center of the universe. And now we know that the stars are not gods with superpowers, but simply suns and planets, millions of miles away. Big balls of gas and rock, flying through space, minding their own business. Mars is not the God of War. Mars is just a big red rock. There is simply no mechanism by which a big rock, flying through space millions of miles away, is gonna affect whether you're gonna get a raise tomorrow or not. Think about how self-centered and narcissistic that idea actually is. Astrology is the idea that this endlessly big universe and all the trillions of planets in it, are only here to affect whether you are gonna have a good day tomorrow. Because all these big rocks flying through space millions of miles away have nothing better to do than worry about you. Because you're so special, and everything is about you. The idea behind astrology is so stupid, it's actually kinda funny.
Oliver Markus Malloy (Bad Choices Make Good Stories - Finding Happiness in Los Angeles (How The Great American Opioid Epidemic of The 21st Century Began, #3))
More often than not, these attempts at sociability ended in painful silence. His old friends, who remembered him as a brilliant student and wickedly funny conversationalist, were appalled by what had happened to him. Tom had slipped from the ranks of the anointed, and his downfall seemed to shake their confidence in themselves, to open the door onto a new pessimism about their own prospects in life. It didn't help matters that Tom had gained weight, that his former plumpness now verged on an embarrassing rotundity, but even more disturbing was the fact that he didn't seem to have any plans, that he never spoke about how he was going to undo the damage he'd done to himself and get back on his feet. Whenever he mentioned his new job, he described it in odd, almost religious terms, speculating on such questions as spiritual strength and the importance of finding one's path through patience and humility, and this confused them and made them fidget in their chairs. Tom's intelligence had not been dulled by the job, but no one wanted to hear what he had to say anymore, least of all the women he talked to, who expected young men to be full of brave ideas and clever schemes about how they were going to conquer the world. Tom put them off with his doubts and soul-searchings, his obscure disquisitions on the nature of reality, his hesitant manner. It was bad enough that he drove a taxi for a living, but a philosophical taxi driver who dressed in army-navy clothes and carried a paunch around his middle was a bit too much to ask. He was a pleasant guy, of course, and no one actively disliked him, but he wasn't a legitimate candidate?not for marriage, not even for a crazy fling.
Paul Auster (The Brooklyn Follies)
while people go on chatting about a million and one things I mostly sit and observe with ascended understandings as they bring up the topic of death and of a person dying I listen quietly while often accidentally smiling at the absurdity of anybody ever believing in death I don't mean to be insensitive towards a body's last breath a higher Reality laid bare, bodily expiration is of no account with this revelation incalculable life fears we surmount the Sage is notorious for finding strange things funny giggling at horrors and ridiculous events not so sunny sometimes a straight face is merely for show but spy the glint in his eye about a truth you don’t know an unfounded assumption is that we only live once not a Mystic throughout history has avowed this occurrence Christian ones may not have mentioned being reborn again they also didn't deny it—their teaching was kept plain just as the Buddha intentionally avoided the God concept ultimately not essential, under the rug reincarnation is swept
Jarett Sabirsh (Love All-Knowing: An Epic Spiritual Poem)
Because it wasn’t enough to be accompanied by the beast who scared the crap out of every god in Heaven, Xuanzang was assigned a few more traveling companions. The gluttonous pig-man Zhu Baijie. Sha Wujing, the repentant sand demon. And the Dragon Prince of the West Sea, who took the form of a horse for Xuanzang to ride. The five adventurers, thusly gathered, set off on their— “Holy ballsacks!” I yelped. I dropped the book like I’d been bitten. “How far did you get?” Quentin said. He was leaning against the end of the nearest shelf, as casually as if he’d been there the whole time, waiting for this moment. I ignored that he’d snuck up on me again, just this once. There was a bigger issue at play. In the book was an illustration of the group done up in bold lines and bright colors. There was Sun Wukong at the front, dressed in a beggar’s cassock, holding his Ruyi Jingu Bang in one hand and the reins of the Dragon Horse in the other. A scary-looking pig-faced man and a wide-eyed demon monk followed, carrying the luggage. And perched on top of the horse was . . . me. The artist had tried to give Xuanzang delicate, beatific features and ended up with a rather girly face. By whatever coincidence, the drawing of Sun Wukong’s old master could have been a rough caricature of sixteen-year-old Eugenia Lo from Santa Firenza, California. “That’s who you think I am?” I said to Quentin. “That’s who I know you are,” he answered. “My dearest friend. My boon companion. You’ve reincarnated into such a different form, but I’d recognize you anywhere. Your spiritual energies are unmistakable.” “Are you sure? If you’re from a long time ago, maybe your memory’s a little fuzzy.” “The realms beyond Earth exist on a different time scale,” Quentin said. “Only one day among the gods passes for every human year. To me, you haven’t been gone long. Months, not centuries.” “This is just . . . I don’t know.” I took a moment to assemble my words. “You can’t walk up to me and expect me to believe right away that I’m the reincarnation of some legendary monk from a folk tale.” “Wait, what?” Quentin squinted at me in confusion. “I said you can’t expect me to go, ‘okay, I’m Xuanzang,’ just because you tell me so.” Quentin’s mouth opened slowly like the dawning of the sun. His face went from confusion to understanding to horror and then finally to laughter. “mmmmphhhhghAHAHAHAHA!” he roared. He nearly toppled over, trying to hold his sides in. “HAHAHAHA!” “What the hell is so funny?” “You,” Quentin said through his giggles. “You’re not Xuanzang. Xuanzang was meek and mild. A friend to all living things. You think that sounds like you?” It did not. But then again I wasn’t the one trying to make a case here. “Xuanzang was delicate like a chrysanthemum.” Quentin was getting a kick out of this. “You are so tough you snapped the battleaxe of the Mighty Miracle God like a twig. Xuanzang cried over squashing a mosquito. You, on the other hand, have killed more demons than the Catholic Church.” I was starting to get annoyed. “Okay, then who the hell am I supposed to be?” If he thought I was the pig, then this whole deal was off. “You’re my weapon,” he said. “You’re the Ruyi Jingu Bang.” I punched Quentin as hard as I could in the face.
F.C. Yee (The Epic Crush of Genie Lo (The Epic Crush of Genie Lo, #1))