Atheism, Apostasy & Spirituality

Prejudice, a dirty word, and faith,

a clean one, have something in common:

they both begin where reason ends.

Harper Lee

There is no religion without love, and people may

talk as much as they like about their religion,

but if it does not teach them to be kind

to man and animals, it is all a sham.

Anna Sewell

No man ever believes that the Bible means

what it says; He is always convinced

that is says what he means.

George Bernard Shaw

Disagreement is not oppression. Argument

is not assault. Words are not violence.

The answer to speech we do not like

is more speech.

Douglas Murray

It is usually futile to try to talk facts and

analysis to people who are enjoying a sense

of moral superiority in their ignorance.

Thomas Sowell

Women and freethinkers in traditional Muslim

communities inherit a double burden. If they

want to live in the modern world, they must

confront not only the theocrats, but many

secular liberals - whose apathy, sanctimony,

and hallucinations of 'racism' throw yet

another veil over their suffering.

Sam Harris

This is my simple religion.

There is no need for temples;

no need for complicated philosophy.

Our own brain, our own heart is our temple;

The philosophy is kindness.

Dalai Lama

Morality is doing what is right, no matter

what you are told. Religion is doing

what you are told, no matter what is right.

H.L. Mencken

Serving God is to do good,

but praying is thought an easier service

and therefore more generally chosen.

Benjamin Franklin

I know that what you call 'God' really exists,

but not in the form that you think; God is primal

cosmic energy, the love in your body,

your integrity, and your perception of

the nature in you and outside of you.

Wilhelm Reich

All were happy - birds, insects and children.

But grown-up people never left off cheating and

tormenting themselves and one another. It was

not this spring morning which they considered

sacred and important, not the beauty of God's

world, given to all creatures to enjoy -

a beauty which inclines the heart to peace,

to harmony and to love.

Leo Tolstoy

No one has ever seen God; but if we love

one another, God lives in us and his

love is made complete in us.

1 John 4:12

Prayer is not asking. It is a longing of the soul.

It is daily admission of one's weakness.

It is better in prayer to have a heart without

words than words without a heart.

Mahatma Gandhi

Most people do not pray; they only beg.

George Bernard Shaw

1. Fasting.

2. Create a morning routine.

3. Daily prayer/meditation.

4. Embrace personal accountability.

5. Read.

6. Change your diet.

7. Remove negative influences.

8. Stretching & exercise.

9. Daily affirmations.

10. Healing.

There are two ways through life:

the way of Nature and the way of Grace.

You have to decide which one you'll follow.

Terrence Malick

Love a man even in his sin, for that is

the semblance of Divine Love and

is the highest love on earth.

Love all of God's creation,

the whole and every grain of sand in it.

Love every leaf, every ray of  God's light.

Love the animals, love the plants,

love everything. If you love everything,

you will perceive

the divine mystery of things.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

From Trauma To Triumph

Your wounds lead you to your purpose.

Mastin Kipp

It can ruin you life only if it ruins your character.

Marcus Aurelius

The dark does not destroy the light: it defines it.

Brené Brown

It's not the events of our lives that shape us,

but our beliefs as to what those events mean.

Tony Robbins

Sometimes the only way we can survive our own

memories is to shape them into a story

that makes sense out of events

that seem inexplicable.

Yeonmi Park

We can't learn without pain.

Aristotle

Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet.

Only through experience of trial and suffering

can the soul be strenghtened, ambition

inspired, and success achieved.

Helen Keller

Given the choice between the experience of pain

and nothing, I would choose pain.

William Faulkner

In life, you get what you believe you deserve.

Jay Samit

A good teacher will lead the horse to water,

an excellent teacher will make

the horse thirsty first.

Mario Cortes

The only way to save yourself

is to endeavor to save others.

Nikos Kazantzakis

Don't lose faith. Promise yourself that you will

be a success story, and I promise you that all

the forces of the universe will unite to come

to your aid; you might not feel today or

for a while, but the longer you wait

the bigger the prize.

George Bernard Shaw

We should try to be parents of our future

rather than the offspring of our past.

Miguel de Unamuno

Being a candle is not easy, in order

to give light one must first burn.

Rumi

Recognize that your birth was a response to

the world's requirements, not solely

your own wishes.

Epictetus

There are ships sailing to many ports,

but not a single one goes where

life is not painful.

Fernando Pessoa

The wound is the place

where the light enters you.

Rumi

I refuse to eat animals because

I cannot nourish myself by the sufferings

and by the death of other creatures.

I refuse to do so, because I suffered

so painfully myself that I can feel

the pains of others by recalling

my own sufferings.

Edgar Kupfer-Koberwitz

One's life has value so long as one attributes

value to the life of others, by means of love,

friendship, indignation and compassion.

Simone de Beauvoir

Eventually, you will come to understand that

love heals everything and love is all there is.

Gary Zukav

May our broken hearts fuel us to fix our world.

Cleo Wade

Stå stilla i smärtan

rotad i det som är ljus i dig.

Låt svärdet gå genom dig.

Kanske det inte alls är ett svärd.

Kanske det är en stämgaffel.

Du blir en ton.

Du blir den musik du alltid

längtat efter att få höra.

Du visste inte att du var en sång.

Ylva Eggehorn

What If... 👽

People say they love animals

and yet harm them nontheless;

I'm glad those people don't love me.

Marc Bekoff

Forgive him, for he believes that the customs

of his tribe are the laws of nature.

George Bernard Shaw

Many people have ideas on how others

should change; few people have ideas

on how they should change.

Leo Tolstoy

Cows scream louder than carrots.

Alan Watts

If you want to know where you would have

stood on slavery before the Civil War,

don't look at where you stand on slavery today.

Look at where you stand on animal rights.

Paul Watson

If you think being a quaker is easy,

you're not doing it right.

Benjamin Lay

It is no measure of health to be well adjusted

to a profoundly sick society.

Krishnamurti

The longer I live, the more convinced am I that

this planet is used by other planets

as a lunatic asylum.

George Bernard Shaw

If a group of beings from another planet were to

land on Earth - beings who considered themselves

as superior to you as you feel yourself to be

to other animals - would you concede them

the rights over you that you assume

over other animals?

George Bernard Shaw

Jo Frederiks

The basis of all animal rights should be

the Golden Rule: we should treat them

as we would wish them to treat us, were

any other species in our dominant position.

Christine Stevens

🐶 Why Love One But Kill and Eat the Other? 🐷

We send one species to the butcher and

give our love and kindness to another

apparently for no reason other than

because it's the way things are.

Melanie Joy

Jo Frederiks

Compassion towards animals is so natural to us,

that only through conditioning could we become

callous towards their suffering and death.

Leo Tolstoy

The soul is the same in all living creatures,

although the body of each is different.

Hippocrates

True compassion is not just an emotional

response but a firm commitment

founded on reason.

Dalai Lama

Animals are my friends...

and I don't eat my friends.

George Bernard Shaw

I wouldn't hurt a cat or a dog - or a chicken

or a cow. And I wouldn't ask someone else

to hurt them for me.

Peter Dinklage

If you've ever loved a cat or a dog,

or even a human, I hope you'll extend

your compassion to include all animals.

Mike White

The soul given to each of us is moved by

the same living spirit that moves the Universe.

Albert Einstein

The animal liberation movement is fighting

what is arguably the most entrenched

and widespread form of exploitation

in human history: speciesism.

Melanie Joy

In every living being there is the desire for love.

D.H. Lawrence

Jo Frederiks

If you choose to eat animals…

 you love pets, not animals.

A man who lies to himself, and believes his own

lies becomes unable to recognize truth,

either in himself or in anyone else,

and he ends up losing respect

for himself and for others.

When he has no respect for anyone, he can

no longer love, and in order to divert himself,

having no love in him, he yields to impulses,

indulges in the lowest forms of pleasure.

And it all comes from lying -

lying to others and to yourself.

Fyodor Dostoevsky

Now I can look at you in peace;

I don't eat you anymore.

Franz Kafka

My heart broke when I pictured my little dog

experiencing even a second of the pain and

fear that factory-farmed animals feel

their entire lives.

Nikki Glaser

The idea that some lives matter less is

the root of all that is wrong in the world.

Paul Farmer

Why should the law refuse its protection to any

sentient being? The time will come when

humanity will extend its mantle over

everyone who breathes.

Jeremy Bentham

Although I can't stop all cruelty to living

creatures on the planet, I can be kinder

to every living creature in my life.

River Phoenix

Selective compassion is a deformity of the mind.

Mohanji

Love is life. All,

everything that I understand,

I understand only because I love.

Leo Tolstoy

Human beings see oppression vividly

when they are the victims. Otherwise

they victimize blindly and without a thought.

Isaac Bashevis Singer

Kindness and beneficence should be extended

to the creatures of every species.

Plutarch

As custodians of the planet it is our responsibility

to deal with all species with kindness, love and

compassion. What these animals suffer through

human cruelty is beyond understanding.

Please help to stop this madness.

Richard Gere

🍖 Make the Connection 🐑

Compassion is ethical intelligence:

it is the capacity to make connections

and the consequent urge to act

to relieve the suffering of others.

Will Tuttle

I stopped eating meat some 50 years ago

when I looked at the pork chop on my plate

and thought: this represents fear, pain, death.

Jane Goodall

Jo Frederiks

Don't talk of love and peace when you

have a dead animal on your plate.

Socrates

I am determined not to kill, not to let others kill,

and not to support any act of killing in the world.

We should consume in such a way that helps

to reduce the suffering of living beings.

And that way we can preserve

compassion in our hearts.

Thich Nhat Hanh

Non-violence, which is the quality of the heart,

cannot come by an appeal to the brain.

Mahatma Gandhi

There is no religion without love, and people may

talk as much as they like about their religion,

but if it does not teach them to be kind

to man and animals, it is all a sham.

Anna Sewell

Compassion, in which all ethics must take root,

can only attain its full breadth and depth

if it embraces all living creatures and

does not limit itself to mankind.

Albert Schweitzer

Until he extends his circle of compassion

to include all living creatures,

man will not himself find peace.

Albert Schweitzer

We cannot have peace among men whose hearts

delight in killing any living creature. By every

act that glorifies or even tolerates such

moronic delight in killing, we set back

the progress of humanity.

Rachel Carson

When a child kills an animal for fun,

we fear mental illness.

When an adult with the capacity to reason

does it, we call it 'sport'.

Seth MacFarlane

Compassion is an unstable emotion.

It needs to be translated into action,

or it withers.

Susan Sontag

What do they know - all these scholars, all these

philosophers, all the leaders of the world -

about such as you? They have convinced

themselves that man, the worst transgressor

of all the species, is the crown of creation.

All other creatures were created merely to

provide him with food, pelts,

to be tormented, exterminated.

Isaac Bashevis Singer

Animals and humans suffer and die alike.

Violence causes the same pain, the same

spilling of blood, the same stench of death,

the same arrogant, cruel, and brutal taking

of life. We don't have to be part of it.

Dick Gregory

Violence begins with the fork.

Mahatma Gandhi

The line separating good and evil passes

not through states, nor between political

parties either - but right through

every human heart.

Alexandr Solzhenitsyn

I felt that if I were to continue to live

in this world I had to do what I could

to reduce the suffering around me,

or at the very least, not to add to it....

I gave up eating meat.

I have not eaten it since.

Nick Cave

Be an Activist

I am of the opinion that my life belongs to

the whole community and as long as I live,

it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can.

George Bernard Shaw

We must take sides. Neutrality helps

the oppressor, never the victim.

Silence encourages the tormentor,

never the tormented.

Elie Wiesel

What you do makes a difference,

and you have to decide what kind

of difference you want to make.

Jane Goodall

The world will not be destroyed by those

who do evil, but by those who watch

 them without doing anything.

Albert Einstein

There are many noteworthy examples of

ordinary evil in every culture and country

around the globe, but in terms of preventable

evil I am hard pressed to find any examples

that approach those systematically perpetrated

by humans against the members of other species.

Lawrence Pope

It is more important to prevent animal suffering,

rather than sit to contemplate the evils

of the universe.

Buddha

The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression

and cruelty by the bad people but

the silence over that by the good people.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

- Make a clear intention - how do I want to contribute to this world?

- Take a leap of faith. Don't let fear determine your actions.

- Personal branding & communication skills to reach as many as possible.

- Plant seeds. You never know what they will grow into.

- Use your strengths. Direct them towards your mission.

- Have a positive vibe. Nudge and be inclusive but always maintain a clear message.

You can also commit injustice

by doing nothing.

Marcus Aurelius

Every man is guilty of all the good he did not do.

Voltaire

Do your little bit of good where you are;

it's those little bits of good put together

that overwhelm the world.

Desmond Tutu

Jo Frederiks

A good person will resist an evil system

with his whole soul.

Mahatma Gandhi

Think about what your skills are, and what you

enjoy doing, or what you're good at and

employ those specific skills to make

the world a better place.

Jo-Anne McArthur

Factory farming is the greatest moral

catastrophe of our time and is also

the most neglected one.

Rutger Bregman

An active minority always wins out

over a passive majority.

Robert Thompson

Our lives no longer belong to us alone:

they belong to all those who

need us desperately.

Eli Wiesel

I have seen firsthand how injustice

gets overlooked when the victims are

powerless or vulnerable, when they have

no one to speak up for them and no means of

representing themselves to a higher authority.

Animals are in precisely that position.

Unless we speak out on their behalf,

abuse and cruelty goes unchallenged.

Desmond Tutu

Terror becomes total when it becomes

independent of all opposition; it rules

supreme when nobody any longer stands

in its way. If lawfulness is the essence of

non-tyrannical government and lawlessness

is the essence of tyranny, then terror is

the essence of totalitarian domination.

Hannah Arendt

The problem is that humans have victimized

animals to such a degree that they are

not even considered victims.

They are not considered at all.

Gary Yourofsky

If you are neutral in situations of injustice,

you have chosen the side of the oppressor.

Desmond Tutu

People who say it cannot be done

should not interrupt those who are doing it.

George Bernard Shaw

Those who love peace must learn to organize

as effectively as those who love war.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

There are many causes I would die for.

There is not a single cause I would kill for.

Mahatma Gandhi

People working together in a strong community

with a shared goal and a common purpose

can make the impossible possible.

Tom Vilsack

May our broken hearts fuel us to fix our world.

Cloe Wade

The difference between what we do and what we

are capable of doing would suffice to solve

most of the world's problems.

Mahatma Gandhi

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful,

committed citizens can change the world;

indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.

Margaret Mead

When exposing a crime is treated as committing

a crime, you are being ruled by criminals.

Edward Snowden

Culture eats strategy for breakfast.

Peter Drucker

What you want to ignite in others

must first burn inside yourself.

Charlotte Brontë

Just one candle can light another and can light

thousands of other candles, so one heart

illuminates another heart and can

illuminate thousands of other hearts.

Leo Tolstoy

Many people, especially ignorant people,

want to punish you for speaking the truth,

for being correct, for being you.

Never apologize for being correct,

or for being years ahead of your time.

If you're right and you know it,

speak your mind.

Even if you are a minority of one,

the truth is still the truth.

Mahatma Gandhi

Life is no brief candle to me.

It is a sort of splendid torch

which I have got a hold of for the moment and

I want to make it burn as brightly as possible

before handing it on to future generations.

George Bernard Shaw

Be the change you want to see in the world.

Mahatma Gandhi