I consider myself a spiritual atheist. I certainly believe there are forces bigger than ourselves, and that we should be searching, individually, for meaning in our lives. But I don't believe there's a supreme being, an intelligence that created everything.

Cultures are never merely intellectual constructs. They take form through the collective intelligence and memory, through a commonly held psychology and emotions, through spiritual and artistic communion.

It is an accepted commonplace in psychology that the spiritual level of people acting as a crowd is far lower than the mean of each individual's intelligence or morality.

I'm in awe of the universe, but I don't necessarily believe there's an intelligence or agent behind it. I do have a passion for the visual in religious rituals, though, even though they may be completely empty and bereft of substance. The incense is powerful and provocative, whether Buddhist or Catholic.

I grew up in a very spiritual home in a Liberty City neighborhood of Miami, FL. I was raised in the church, and my mother was a very inspirational person in my life.

The fact that I can plant a seed and it becomes a flower, share a bit of knowledge and it becomes another's, smile at someone and receive a smile in return, are to me continual spiritual exercises.

Keep your feet on the ground, but let your heart soar as high as it will. Refuse to be average or to surrender to the chill of your spiritual environment.

The Jewish festival of freedom is the oldest continuously observed religious ritual in the world. Across the centuries, Passover has never lost its power to inspire the imagination of successive generations of Jews with its annually re-enacted drama of slavery and liberation.

Even the highest forms of sacrificial worship present much that is repulsive to modern ideas, and in particular it requires an effort to reconcile our imagination to the bloody ritual which is prominent in almost every religion which has a strong sense of sin.

In the imagination, Harlem will always be the spiritual capital of black excellence in America.

My main point here is that if you are the child of God and God is a part of you, the in your imagination God suppose to look like you. And when you accept a picture of the deity assigned to you by another people, you become the spiritual prisoners of that other people.

I liked the humor of it, I've always enjoyed a sense of humor in God and in religion and in spirituality.

Down the road, I'll probably have a kid or two or three. And there will probably be political events or spiritual things to comment on, and humor.

Humor is a part of spirituality.

Our worldly successes cannot be guaranteed, but our ability to achieve spiritual success is entirely up to us, thanks to the grace of God. The best advice I know is to give is to give those worldly things your best but never your all - reserve the ultimate hope for the only one who can grant it.

One truth stands firm. All that happens in world history rests on something spiritual. If the spiritual is strong, it creates world history. If it is weak, it suffers world history.

Going vegetarian - and then vegan - has calmed me down, and it has also made me physically and emotionally strong. I do crave meat once in a while, but I find that spiritually, non-vegetarian food works against my emotional health.

Our landscapes connect us to our history; they are the source of our character as a peopl, as well as our health, our safety, and our prosperity. Natural resources enrich us economically, yes. But they also enrich us aesthetically and recreationally and culturally and spiritually.

Learning is the beginning of wealth. Learning is the beginning of health. Learning is the beginning of spirituality. Searching and learning is where the miracle process all begins.

I made a commitment to completely cut out drinking and anything that might hamper me from getting my mind and body together. And the floodgates of goodness have opened upon me - spiritually and financially.

The belief that we can rely on shortcuts to happiness, joy, rapture, comfort, and ecstasy, rather than be entitled to these feelings by the exercise of personal strengths and virtues, leads to legions of people who, in the middle of great wealth, are starving spiritually.

I was able to find myself spiritually by realizing that my happiness started with me.

My happiness is not dependent on others; it comes from within. Spiritual growth in a person is never encouraged, but it is important. I don't know why people want to judge others instead of doing their own thing. I firmly feel that I don't need to follow or live according to other people's rules. I like living life the way I want to.

Great minds are to make others great. Their superiority is to be used, not to break the multitude to intellectual vassalage, not to establish over them a spiritual tyranny, but to rouse them from lethargy, and to aid them to judge for themselves.