Literary and Spiritual Excerpts
…philosophers cannot entirely exempt themselves from this natural frailty; but have oft ascribed to inanimate matter the horror of a vacuum, sympathies, antipathies, and other affections of human nature. The absurdity is not less, while …
Persian Letters If there is a God…he must necessarily be just; for if he were not, he would be the most wicked and imperfect of all beings…. Men commit unjust acts because it is to …
A Discourse of Free-Thinking …by Free-Thinking alone Men are capable of knowing that a perfectly Good, Just, Wise and Powerful Being made and governs the World; and from this Principle they know, that he can …
“An Imperialist Soldier’s Judgment Day” when that fateful bullet struck you turned instantly tragic forgetting sharp pant-creases and military salutes like a scaleless fish caught in a swamp clutching the cool moist earth you writhe …
The Kuzari, part II God commanded cessation of work on the Sabbath and holy days, as well as in the culture of the soil, all this “as a remembrance of the exodus from Egypt” and …
Opticks To what end are comets, and whence is it that planets move all one and the same way in orbs concentric while comets move all manner of ways in orbs very eccentric, and what …
From Keli Hemda, (in N. Glatzer, ed., In Time and Eternity) “…you shall. Love your neighbor as yourself; I am the Lord…” [Leviticus 19:18]. …This explains two things. First, since the souls that are as …
The articles of religion are some of them practical and some of them speculative. Now, though both sorts consist in the knowledge of truth, yet these terminate simply in the understanding, those influence the will …
The whole world depends on the holiness of the union between man and woman, for the world was created for the sake of God’s glory and the essential revelation of His glory comes through the …
The conception of a dharma is the central point of the Buddhist doctrine. In the light of this conception, Buddhism discloses itself as a metaphysical theory developed out of one fundamental principle, viz. the idea …
God’s making His creatures’ diligent compliance with His commandments the means of attaining permanent bliss is the better course. For according to the judgment of reason the person who achieves some good by means of …
Judaism is a way of life that endeavors to transform virtually every human action into a means of communion with God. Through this communion with God, the Jew is enabled to make his contribution to …
Every sentient being is capable of attainting enlightenment, which is not so much a change from one extreme, Samsara, to another, Nirvana, but the ineffable experience in which both have ceased to dominate the thought …
A man who makes efforts to cleave to God has no time to think of unimportant matters; when he constantly serves the Creator, he has no time to be vain…. If a man should suddenly …
Agnostics may justifiably insist (and they are at one with all the greatest religious thinkers in their insistence) on the strict limitations of the intellect of man in his approach to the Supreme Power, even …
To His people, God the Lord is simultaneously the God of retribution and the God of love. In the same breath, they call on Him as “our God” and as “King of the universe,” or …