Oh, earth, you're too wonderful for anybody to realize you. Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it -- every, every minute?
Thornton WilderRead
Those who dare to interpret God's will must never claim Him as an asset for one nation or group rather than another. War springs from the love and loyalty which should be offered to God being applied to some God substitute, one of the most dangerous being nationalism.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Interpretation of God's will should be universal, not limited to specific national or group agendas.
Robert Runcie's quote emphasizes the danger of using faith and loyalty to God as a justification for nationalism or the superiority of one group over another. It warns against the conflation of religious devotion with national allegiance, indicating that such attachments can lead to conflict and war. Runcie suggests that true spirituality should transcend boundaries, promoting unity rather than division.
Themes
GodNationalismWarLoyaltyFaith
In practice
Example use cases
During a lecture on ethics and morality, this quote could illustrate the potential dangers of conflating faith with nationalism.
Similar quotes
I've become convinced that nostalgia is a fundamentally unhealthy modality. When you see it, it's usually attached to something else that's really, seriously bad. I don't traffic in nostalgia. We're becoming a global culture.
William GibsonRead
Life and Jah are one in the same. Jah is the gift of existence. I am in some way eternal, I will never be duplicated. The singularity of every man and woman is Jah's gift. What we struggle to make of it is our sole gift to Jah. The process of what that struggle becomes, in time, the Truth.
Bob MarleyRead
It's totally irrational, patently insane to condemn an entire race - to despise an entire nation - to vilify an entire religion.
Stan LeeRead
Just imagine living in a world without mirrors. You'd dream about your face and imagine it as an outer reflection of what is inside you. And then, when you reached forty, someone put a mirror before you for the first time in your life. Imagine your fright! You'd see the face of a stranger. And you'd know quite clearly what you are unable to grasp: your face is not you.
Milan KunderaRead
When goals go, meaning goes. When meaning goes, purpose goes. When purpose goes, life goes dead on our hands.
Carl JungRead