Richard Rohr Quotes

When my kids were growing up, I wanted their teachers to teach them science, reading, math and history. I also wanted them to care about my kids. But I did not want my children's public school teachers teaching them religion. That was my job as a parent and the job of our church, Sunday school, and youth group.

I have searched frantically for contentment for so many years in so many ways, and all the acquisitions and accomplishments- they run you down in the end.

No matter how many luxuries you get, something will be missing. No matter how carefully you choose, you'll never be totally happy.

I was lucky enough to have had great success early on in life; to have had all the things the material world can offer. And yet, I realized that what I had actually neglected was the more spiritual side of myself, which has always been there. But it's easy for us in our culture to become consumed in a sense by materialism. Now materialism is fine. We live in a material world. I'm not saying that beautiful things don't enhance our lives. But, in our culture, we're never happy.

[Spanish] unreasoning religious ardor culminated in the Inquisition, established for the purpose of securing the supreme good of unblemished purity and uniformity of belief. Nothing was allowed to stand in the way of this, and no sacrifice was deemed too great for its accomplishment. All officials, from the king downward, were sworn to its support, and the sinister influence which it exercised was proportioned to the enormous power which it wielded.

In the religion classes, students learn that the Saudi interpretation of Islam supersedes any worldly concept of human rights. Women have the most to lose, yet their ideas are so ingrained that I defy you to find a report of a Saudi mother complaining about what our children are being taught.

Since the association of seasonal activities with religious activities in the public schools tends to pervert their religious significance, such association be discouraged as foreign to the purpose of the public schools.

Christmas may have many general folk elements are popular with children. But sincere and thoughtful Christians will surely agree that Christmas is primarily a religious festival…. The practice of calling on Jewish children to join in the singing of Christmas carols, to take part in Christmas plays … must be regarded as an infringement on their rights as Americans.

The liberal use of Christian symbols at community celebrations was an affront to the non-Christian residents, who felt that they could not participate equally and felt less favored.

The studies in the Mohammedan schools and colleges have hitherto been confined to Arabic, the Koran, and abstruse studies relating to their religion, having always shown a marked aversion to English literature.

The Christian religion, as organized in its churches, has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world.

Man's inhumanity to man will continue as long as man loves God more than he loves his fellow man.

A Protestant population does not willingly allow education to be controlled for it by Catholics …

Most men indeed as well as most sects in Religion, think themselves in possession of all truth, and that where ever others differ from them it is so far error.

The final goal of all human endeavor is the development of the human soul.

Materialism isn't the panacea that so many people think it is.

Anytime I ever have met someone that was very angry or full of negativity, nine times out of ten, if you really take a good look at that person's life, there's probably not a whole lot of love going on there.

There is nothing more painful than walking around with bitterness in your heart.

Nobody's happy. What's happy? Happiness is over when the lights come on." The older woman poured herself a glass of sangria. "Screw that," she said quietly. "What?" "Screw that. Wash your mouth out. Who taught you that half-assed existential drivel?

We think that life is about get the girl, get the guy, get the car, get the job, get the house, get the kids, get the better job, get the better car, get the better house, get the promotion, get the office in the corner, get the kids on their way, get the grandkids, get the retirement watch, get the cruise tickets, get the illness, and get the heck out. That's it. That's a good life. But life has nothing to do with any of that. That is not our purpose in living. That is not the Agenda of the Soul.

College education gives you the chance to earn money and live thereupon. But, umless it destroys certain illusions that are nourished by the common level of mankind, your lives will not be happy.

I know it sounds old-fashioned to say we're too materialistic in the West, but happiness does not derive exclusively from things, and yet we seem to be structuring our whole society around things. I think that's partially why Westerners are joining ISIS and going to Syria. We have lost our way in the West in holding up a vision for humanity that is not exclusively shaped by materialism.

They have succeeded in accumulating a greater mass of objects, but the joy in the world has grown less.

So many religions are there because so many people are unhappy. A happy person needs no religion; a happy person needs no temple, no church - because for a happy person the whole universe is a temple, the whole existence is a church. The happy person has nothing like religious activity because his whole life is religious.

Which of us is happy in this world? Which of us has his desire? or, having it, is satisfied?