Sectarianism Quotes

My religion is the best - my nation is the best - my language is the best - my skin color is the best - and so on. One may feel proud saying all these things, but that very pride ends up becoming the cause of all interhuman conflicts in the human society. ~ Abhijit Naskar

Humanity may destroy the possibilities for life on earth unless the freedom and power that we have acquired are channeled in new creative directions by a spiritual awareness and moral commitment that transcend nationalism, racism, sexism, religious sectarianism, anthropocentrism, and the dualism between human culture and nature. This is the great issue for the 1990s and the twenty-first century. ~ Steven Clark Rockefeller

In beloved Iraq, blood is flowing between brothers, in the shadow of an illegitimate foreign occupation, and abhorrent sectarianism threatens a civil war. ~ Abdullah Of Saudi Arabia

Darkness prevails only in the absence of light. Light a candle and the darkness disappears. ~ Abhijit Naskar

Get rid of sectarianism, nationalism, tribalism, and there will be peace on earth. ~ Marty Rubin

In general, if signs of sectarianism do appear in a Socialist Party, these are only the products of the absence of a broad Labour movement in the country. ~ Karl Radek

There remains a problem with race in America because of the church's failure to understand the issues from a biblical perspective."

"Rather than being called into a different community by Scripture, we see our broken communities as justified by Scripture."

"Rather than challenge the worldly status quo, religious groups perpetuate stereotypes, sectarianism, and schisms when accepting ethnic denominational identities- inverting Pentecost by reading in multiple languages unrecognized by listeners and offering separate worship services according to musical preference."

"Ultimately, our aim is to draw attention to the biblical narrative from which comes to the strength for the long road of reconciliation. ~ Joy Moore

God is merciful cant we all be on the right track of faith but just using different roads? ~ Ali Al-Ahmed

What America needs is character - a character, bright enough to shine over a whole community - a character burning with love, passion and purity - a character free from all sorts of sectarianism, be it religious, political or atheistic. ~ Abhijit Naskar

The deceit is sometimes unconscious, but not always, since some people, owing to their sectarianism, purposely overlook reality and refuse to acknowledge the inadequacies and the falsity of their beliefs. ~ Pierre-Paul Grasse

When John accuses "evildoers" of leading gullible people into sin, what troubles him is what troubled the Essenes: whether - or how much - to accommodate pagan culture. And when we see Jesus' earliest followers, including Peter, James, and Paul, not as we usually see them, as early Christians, but as they saw themselves - as Jews who had found God's messiah - we can see that they struggled with the same question. For when John charges that certain prophets and teachers are encouraging God's people to eat "unclean" food and engage in "unclean" sex, he is taking up arguments that had broken out between Paul and followers of James and Peter about forty years earlier - an argument that John of Patmos continues with a second generation of Paul's followers. For when we ask, who are the "evildoers" against whom John warns? we may be surprised by the answer. Those whom John says Jesus "hates" look very much like the Gentile followers of Jesus converted through Paul's teaching. Many commentators have pointed out that when we step back from John's angry rhetoric, we can see that the very practices John denounces are those that Paul had recommended. ~ Elaine Pagels

See yourself in a mirror, you are a human first than anything else. ~ Imahmedyounis

The way to peace is acceptance. ~ Abhijit Naskar

The human must become the saint and the messiah to his or her part of the global society, and having done so, no obscurity or discrimination shall have the power to raise its poisonous fangs even during the darkest days of misfortune. ~ Abhijit Naskar

If I give you two possible worlds to choose from, in which you would like your children and grandchildren to live, which one would you choose - a world filled with hatred and discrimination, or a world where the humans care about their fellow humans beyond the petty little man-made labels of religion, race, nationality, intellect, gender etc.!

We do not need to make efforts and be kind in order to keep Nature running, she can do that quite well and far better than us herself, in fact, it'd benefit Nature, if suddenly the humans were to disappear. It is us who need Nature in order to exist, not the other way around.

We must stand on the side of kindness, goodness, compassion and conscience, not to keep the processes in Nature functioning, but because if we don't, the environment that we would be giving our future generations, would be no different than the violent and lethal environment of the wild. Hence, our kindness would make no difference to Nature whatsoever, rather it would simply be a selfish yet humanely necessary act on our part, that we must carry out to create a humane environment for the human species.

Upon the kindness of us humans, the fate of humanity is predicated, not the fate of Nature. We are born in a world filled with hatred and discrimination, hence it is our existential responsibility as sentient and conscientious beings to contribute in the elimination of such discrimination and hatred. Kindness of ours in our daily wal ~ Abhijit Naskar

Sectarianism is tribalism, be it religious, political, ethnic, educational or any other form. ~ Abhijit Naskar

One bridge of acceptance trumps a hundred walls of discrimination. ~ Abhijit Naskar

Sufism is not a religion or a philosophy, it is neither deism nor atheism, nor is it a moral, nor a special kind of mysticism, being free from the usual religious sectarianism. If ever it could be called a religion, it would only be as a religion of love, harmony, and beauty. ~ Hazrat Inayat Khan

Superstition is thriving. Pedantry is thriving. Sectarianism is thriving. Belief is dying out. To most of your people the jinn are paranoid fantasies who run around causing epilepsy and mental illness. Find me someone to whom the hidden folk are simply real, as described in the Books. You'll be searching a long time. Wonder and awe have gone out of your religions. You are prepared to accept the irrational, but not the transcendent. And that, cousin, is why I can't help you. ~ G. Willow Wilson

In America the taint of sectarianism lies broad upon the land. Not content with acknowledging the supremacy as the Deity, and with erecting temples in his honor, where all can bow down with reverence, the pride and vanity of human reason enter into and pollute our worship, and the houses that should be of God and for God, alone, where he is to be honored with submissive faith, are too often merely schools of metaphysical and useless distinctions. The nation is sectarian, rather than Christian.
Religion's first lesson is humility; its fruit, charity. In the great and sublime ends of Providence, little things are lost, and least of all is he imbued with a right spirit who believes that insignificant observances, subtleties of doctrine, and minor distinctions, enter into the great essentials of the Christian character. The wisest thing for him who is disposed to cavil at the immaterial habits of his neighbor, to split straws on doctrine, to fancy trifles of importance, and to place the man before principles, would be to distrust himself. ~ James Fenimore Cooper

No-one can own our Lord Buddha. That would be a foolish claim, but the roads that lead to him, the Way... That is a different matter. They are all filled with toll-gates, like the roads of Japan, and the monks collect the fees. ~ Erik Christian Haugaard

The gospel is not to take the form of hole-in-the-corner sectarianism, it must be set forth by public preaching. ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Who created the sectarian attitude in Iraq? The occupation, ... We never heard of this before in our history. But it's good that Condoleezza Rice realizes sectarianism is not good for Iraq. All we want from them is fair and clean elections next month. ~ Saleh Al-Mutlaq

The transition between our current Type 0 civilization and a future Type I civilization is perhaps the greatest transition in history. It will determine whether we will continue to thrive and flourish, or perish due to our own folly. This transition is extremely dangerous because we still have all the barbaric savagery that typified our painful rise from the swamp. Peel back the veneer of civilization, and we still see the forces of fundamentalism, sectarianism, racism, intolerance, etc., at work. Human nature has not changed much in the past 100,000 years, except now we have nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons to settle old scores. ~ Michio Kaku

Nothing better protects a human being against the stupidity of prejudice, racism, religious or political sectarianism, and exclusivist nationalism than this truth that invariably appears in great literature: that men and women of all nations and places are essentially equal, and only injustice sows among them discrimination, fear, and exploitation. ~ Mario Vargas-Llosa

After the revolution of 1979, Iran embarked on a policy of sectarianism. Iran began a policy of expanding its revolution, of interfering with the affairs of its neighbors, a policy of assassinating diplomats and of attacking embassies. Iran is responsible for a number of terrorist attacks in the Kingdom, it is responsible for smuggling explosives and drugs into Saudi Arabia. And Iran is responsible for setting up sectarian militias in Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Yemen, whose objective is to destabilize those countries. ~ Adel Al-Jubeir

Slogan For Humanity (The Sonnet)

Let's slogan for humanity above the cacophony of politics.
Let's slogan all together for the people and not bookish morality.
Let's slogan for humanity above the drumbeats of bigotry.
Let's slogan for the souls in misery and not nationality.
Let's slogan for humanity above the foghorn of policies.
Let's slogan cause we are responsible, not cause we're aggressive.
Let's slogan for humanity above the siren of world peace.
Let's slogan being peace incarnate beyond all doctrines illusive.
Let's slogan for humanity above the noise of traditions.
Let's slogan all together trumping all worship of sects.
Let's slogan for humanity above the gunshots of authoritarianism.
Let's slogan as just, free and brave beings, not loyal subjects.
Awake and Arise my sisters and brothers to slogan for all of humankind.
We are the light and we are the might that's needed during this ominous tide. ~ Abhijit Naskar

The philosophic outlook rises above all sectarian controversy. It finds its own position not only by appreciating and synthesizing what is solidly based in the rival sects but also by capping them all with the keystone of nonduality. ~ Paul Brunton

A politician who represents the interests primarily of economic elites must find other means of appealing to the masses. Such alternatives are provided by the politics of nationalism, sectarianism, and identity. ~ Dani Rodrik

He himself felt defeated because he was fighting against something he did not hate, because he did not understand the fratricidal hatred between the sons of Araby and Israel, and because he loved and knew and appreciated and wanted to save the merits of their cultures, although not the cruelty of their powers; he knew and loved the fountains and the gardens and the patios and high towers of al-Andalus, the nature that has been made more beautiful by man for man's pleasure, not for his mortification. ~ Carlos Fuentes

Now is the time that we make conscientious efforts towards becoming a real wise species, free from all sorts of bigotry, mysticism and sectarianism. ~ Abhijit Naskar

It pains me to say this, today's humans only look human, but act like animals. They judge before they understand - they conclude before they realize - they proclaim before they recognize. They talk about harmony yet in their psyche they are more broken and conflicted than a broken glass. As a result, harmony has become yet another pompous ideology for them to take pride in, without sacrificing anything on their part - they simply talk about harmony while desperately clinging to their own beloved tribal labels and expect peace to manifest magically out of thin air. That's not how harmony works my friend. ~ Abhijit Naskar

This sectarianism is an attempt to leap away from the narrow path of the paradox and become a tragic hero at a cheap price. The tragic hero expresses the universal and sacrifices himself for it. The sectarian punchinello, instead of that, has a private theatre, i.e. several good friends and comrades who represent the universal ~ Soren Kierkegaard

I have tried to kill sectarianism, whether in Catholics or Protestants. ~ James Larkin

It might be comforting to assume that intolerance is an aberration within Islam but discrimination against Christians or any other non-Muslim is in fact integral to orthodox Muslim teaching, and the more profound issue to the serious-minded is not the existence of sectarianism but its extent. ~ Michael Coren

In Scotland, Catholics have raised their voices against sectarianism and intolerance directed against the Church. Clearly, these actions show that freedom of religious expression, a basic human right, is not upheld in our midst as widely and as completely as it should be. ~ Keith O'Brien

Most talk of a catholic spirit but it is only till they have been brought into the pale of their own church. This is downright sectarianism, not Catholicism. How can I act consistently, unless I receive and love all the children of God, whom I esteem to be such, of whatever denomination they may be? ~ George Whitefield

We must be vigilant that we don't sink into the morass of sectarianism, mixing, pettiness etc. We must not get involved in unprincipled slagging matches etc or into positions that are sectarian, anti-revolutionary, morally damaging that give succour to the enemy & that confuse & divide the working class ~ Thomas S. Power

Australia integrated the - brought on the ships and unleashed in the society the dogs of sectarianism, which had existed in other places - in Glasgow, in Liverpool and of course in Ireland, north and south. ~ Thomas Keneally

The dark shadow we seem to see in the distance is not really a mountain ahead, but the shadow of the mountain behind - a shadow from the past thrown forward into our future. It is a dark sludge of historical sectarianism. We can leave it behind us if we wish. ~ David Trimble

It is notable how little empathy is cultivated or valued in our society. I put this down to our traditional racism and obsessive sectarianism. Even so, one would think that we would be encouraged to project ourselves into the character of someone of a different race or class, if only to be able to control him. But no effort is made. ~ Gore Vidal

The last thing I would want to do is to create the impression that sectarianism came from only one side of the community. ~ Mary McAleese

Pure faith in the benevolece of the Divine can also degenerate into destructive forms of religion like othodoxy, fundamentalism, sectarianism, fanaticism, black magic and witchcraft. ~ Nirmala Srivastava

Become the destroyer of sects - become the breaker of privileges – become the messenger of equality – become the prophet of goodness. ~ Abhijit Naskar

Whenever there is an uprising of misery, discrimination and sectarianism, I shall rise over and over again, to take humanity with me in the path of sweet, progressive harmony. ~ Abhijit Naskar

Spirituality can be severed from both vicious sectarianism and thoughtless banalities. Spirituality, I have come to see, is nothing less than the thoughtful love of life. [Spirituality for the Skeptic] ~ Robert C. Solomon

In a typically contradictory move, globalisation, while promoting economic integration among elites, has exacerbated sectarianism everywhere else. ~ Pankaj Mishra

Sectarian thinking is contagious and rapidly spread. ~ Moutasem Algharati