John Shelby Spong Quotes

If you're going to live in a community, you have to refrain from killing one another and stealing from one another. You must have honor and honesty in your dealings with one another. But I think the deeper thing that we need to do is to become so fully human that we don't grasp at life; we give life away. We give love away. We give being away. That is the ultimate work of religion.

Compassion has been advocated by all the great faiths because it has been found to be the safest and surest means of attaining enlightenment. It dethrones the ego from the center of our lives and puts others there, breaking down the carapace of the selfishness that holds us back from an experience of the sacred. And it gives us ecstasy, broadening our perspectives and giving us a larger, enhanced vision.

The hardest times to choose love are the very times when you can most grow spiritually. In fact, they are the only times you can grow spiritually!

The worth of a human being lies in the ability to extend oneself, to go outside oneself, to exist in and for other people.

The giving of love is an education in itself.

Mother Teresa was asked what was the meaning of life, and she said to help other people, and I thought, 'What a strange thing to say' - but maybe it's the right thing to say.

My faith in humanity leads me to believe that people are looking for something more elevating than the sordid details of the intimate aspects of one's personal life.

I have learned more about love, selflessness and human understanding from the people I have met in this great adventure in the world of AIDS than I ever did in the cutthroat, competitive world in which I spent my life.

The sole meaning of life is to serve humanity.

I can assuredly say that it's my life's mission to love all people.

Real education should educate us out of self into something far finer; into a selflessness which links us with all humanity.

What is it that distinguishes you and me from the lower animals - from the beasts? More, I say, than anything else, human sympathy - human sympathy.

When we love like Jesus does, lives change for the better.

Sometimes it's more important to be human, than to have good taste.

I often write about nonreligious people, and I try to find situations where their sense of humanity is restored or discovered. I think you can be a good person in many ways. And I think you often have to be careful that prayer can seem superficial, because it's a very complicated thing to love your neighbor as yourself.

Human life has meaning only to that degree and as long as it is lived in the service of humanity.

Most people would rather give than get affection.

Life is precious and time is a key element. Let's make every moment count and help those who have a greater need than our own.

Compassion brings us to a stop, and for a moment we rise above ourselves.

It was a very profound experience, getting in touch with that part of us, in all of us human beings, that is committed beyond yourself to the point of giving everything you have, including your life, for other people, for your fellow man.

Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind.

The individual is capable of both great compassion and great indifference. He has it within his means to nourish the former and outgrow the latter.

A religious awakening which does not awaken the sleeper to love has roused him in vain.

The purpose of human life is to serve and to show compassion and the will to help others.

Without love, we are not free from our own self interest.