Pagan Quotes - Page 9

• No greater glory can be handed down than to conquer the barbarian, to recall the savage and the pagan to civility, to draw the ignorant within the orbit of reason, and to fill with reverence for divinity the godless and the ungodly.

  Richard Hakluyt

  History, Ignorant, Divinity

  Richard Hakluyt (1935). “The Original Writings & Correspondence of the Two Richard Hakluyts”

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• The Prayer of Examine produces within us the priceless grace of self-knowledge. I wish I could adequately explain to you how great a grace this truly is. Unfortunately, contemporary men and women simply do not value self-knowledge in the same way that all preceding generations have. For us technocratic knowledge reigns supreme. Even when we pursue self-knowledge, we all too often reduce it to a hedonistic search for personal peace and prosperity. How poor we are! Even the pagan philosophers were wiser than this generation. They knew that an unexamined life was not worth living.

  Richard J. Foster

  Prayer, Men, Self

  6 Copy quote

• It's not the wickedness of the pagan that breaks my heart. It's the compromise of the Christian that grieves my soul.

  R. C. Sproul

  Christian, Heart, Grieving

  17 Copy quote

• Spiritual knowledge is like a house built in the midst of secular and pagan knowledge, in which there is laid up, like a solid and well-secured chest, the knowledge of the inspired Scriptures and the inestimable riches they contain. Those who enter into the house will never at all be able to see those treasures unless this chest is opened for them. But it does not belong to human wisdom (cf. I Cor. 2:13) ever to be able to open it, so that the riches of the Spirit deposited in it remain unknown to all who are worldly.

  Symeon the New Theologian

  Christian, Spiritual, Cfs

  9 Copy quote

• I believe in mystery and multiplicity. To religious believers this may sound almost pagan. But I don't think so.

  Richard Rohr

  Religious, Believe, Thinking

  7 Copy quote

• It also happens to me that when I meet a clericalist, I suddenly become anti-clerical. Clericalism should not have anything to do with Christianity. St. Paul, who was the first to speak to the Gentiles, the pagans, to believers in other religions, was the first to teach us that.

  Pope Francis

  Firsts, Speak, Christianity

  "The Pope: how the Church will change". Interview with Eugenio Scalfari, www.repubblica.it. October 1, 2013.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• When we let go of believing we are superior, we open ourselves to the experience of living in the community of Nature.

  Philip Carr-Gomm

  Inspirational, Life, Letting Go

  Philip Carr-Gomm, Stephanie Carr-Gomm (1996). “The Druid Animal Oracle”, p.5, Connections Book Publishing

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• Fashion is primitive in its insistence on exhibitionism, which withers in isolation. The catwalk fashion show with its incandescent hype is its apotheosis. A ritualized gathering of connoiseurs and the spoilt at a spotlit parade of snazzy pulchritude, it is an industrialized version of the pagan festivals of renewal. At the end of each seasonal display, a priesthood is enjoined to carry news of the omens to the masses.

  Stephen Bayley

  Fashion, Hype, Gathering

  53 Copy quote

• People came into the Church in the Roman Empire because the Church was so good-Catholics were so good to one another, and they were so good to pagans, too. High-pressure evangelization strikes me as an attempt to deprive people of their freedom of choice.

  Andrew Greeley

  People, Choices, Catholic

  "Father Andrew Greeley Extended Interview". Interview With Judy Valente, www.pbs.org. May 10, 2002.

  22 Copy quote

  Show source

• Muhammad was a prince; he rallied his compatriots around him. In a few years, the Muslims conquered half of the world. They plucked more souls from false gods, knocked down more idols, razed more pagan temples in fifteen years than the followers of Moses and Jesus did in fifteen centuries. Muhammad was a great man. He would indeed have been a god, if the revolution that he had performed had not been prepared by the circumstances.

  Napoleon Bonaparte

  Jesus, Army, Men

  "Campagnes d'Egypte et Syrie", Paris, Imprimerie Nationale, (p. 275), translated by John Tolan in "European Accounts of Muhammad's Life", 1998.

  118 Copy quote

  Show source

• Male aggression and lust are the energizing factors in culture. They are men's tools of survival in the pagan vastness of female nature.

  Camille Paglia

  Men, Lust, Survival

  Camille Paglia (1990). “Sexual Personae”, p.42, Yale University Press

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• He wasn't completely wrong, poor old Gemistus (let Lord Andronicus and the patriarch suspect him if they like), in wanting us, telling us to become pagan once again.

  C.P. Cavafy

  Lord, Poor, Patriarch

  4 Copy quote

• In what pagan nation was Moloch ever propitiated by such an unbroken and swift-moving procession of victims as are offered to this Moloch of Christendom, intemperance.

  Horace Mann

  Moving, Unbroken, Victim

  Horace Mann (1852). “Two Lectures on Intemperance: The effects of intemperance on the poor and ignorant. The effects of intemperance on the rich and educated. I.. II.”, p.74

  16 Copy quote

  Show source

• Judeo-Christians have got to respect the pagan truth shown in the popular culture of sex and violence. It's meaningful about the elemental forces of life, the brutality of life and nature.

  Camille Paglia

  Christian, Meaningful, Sex

  5 Copy quote

• Encourage free schools and resolve that not one dollar appropriated for their support shall be appropriated to the support of any sectarian schools. Resolve that neither the state nor nation, nor both combined, shall support institutions of learning other than those sufficient to afford every child growing up in the land of opportunity of a good common school education, unmixed with sectarian, pagan, or atheistical dogmas. Leave the matter of religion to the family altar, the church and the private school supported entirely by private contributions. Keep the church and state forever separate.

  Ulysses S. Grant

  Children, Growing Up, School

  Speech to the Society of the Army of Tennessee, archive.org. 1875.

  106 Copy quote

  Show source

• ... the common law existed while the Anglo-Saxons were yet pagans, at a time when they had never yet heard the name of Christ pronounced or knew that such a character existed.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Character, Law, Names

  Thomas Jefferson (1855). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence. Reports and opinions while secretary of state”, p.359

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• That no Flake of [snow] fall on you or them - is a wish that would be a Prayer, were Emily not a Pagan.

  Emily Dickinson

  Prayer, Fall, Snow

  4 Copy quote

• Knew I how to pray, to intercede for your [broken] Foot were intuitive - but I am but a Pagan.

  Emily Dickinson

  Feet, Broken, Atheism

  4 Copy quote

• You better believe that I want to build a Christian nation, because the only option is a pagan nation. Not that the government can make someone a Christian by decree. A Christian nation would be defined as We acknowledge God in our body politic, in our communities, that the God of the Bible is our God, and, we acknowledge that His law is supreme.

  Randall Terry

  Christian, Believe, Government

  4 Copy quote

• Christianity taught that men ought to be as chaste as pagans thought honest women ought to be; the contraceptive morality teaches that women need to be as little chaste as pagans thought men need be.

  G. E. M. Anscombe

  Men, Needs, Honest Woman

  29 Copy quote

• We...believe that art is religious, because it is one of man's highest aspirations. There is no such thing as pagan art, only good and bad art.

  Irving Stone

  Religious, Art, Believe

  Irving Stone (1981). “Irving Stone, three complete novels”, Random House Value Publishing

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• He’s a pagan! I’m an artist! We’re naturally sympathetic!

  Sidney Howard

  Inspirational, Life, Art

  5 Copy quote

• But now inquiry is being made concerning these issues. First, can any believer enlist in the military? Second, can any soldier, even those of the rank and file or lesser grades who neither engage in pagan sacrifices nor capital punishment, be admitted into the church? No on both counts.

  Tertullian

  Military, Sacrifice, Punishment

  15 Copy quote

• From Roman times to the present, Italy has been a country to fall in love with - a tribute to all that is enduring, crazy, pagan, joyous, melancholy, at once banal and divine, in the human spirit.

  Erica Jong

  Country, Falling In Love, Crazy

  4 Copy quote

• There are such people, unfortunates who have to be angry before they can feel alive. I had sometimes wondered if it were some old relic of pagan superstition, the fear of risking the jealousy and anger of the gods, that made such people afraid of even small happinesses. Or perhaps it was only that tragedy is more self-important than laughter.

  Mary Stewart

  Fear, Laughter, Anger

  5 Copy quote