“Storytelling is fine as long as you can encourage people to act on the...” — Karen Armstrong Quote

Storytelling is fine as long as you can encourage people to act on the stories.

The first person to promulgate the Golden Rule, which was the bedrock of this empathic spirituality, was Confucius 500 years before Christ.

Every fundamentalist movement I've studied in Judaism, Christianity and Islam is convinced at some gut, visceral level that secular liberal society wants to wipe out religion.

In the holy city of Mecca, violence of any kind was forbidden. From the moment they left home, pilgrims were not permitted to carry weapons, to swat an insect or speak an angry word, a discipline that introduced them to a new way of living.

When you don't act right to your family and friends, that's bad, but they also have the opportunity to experience the 'good' side as well. Disappointing the fans is an entirely different thing because the fans love your music and save up money to see you in concert.

Every act of rebellion expresses a nostalgia for innocence and an appeal to the essence of being.

For me, an area of moral clarity is: you're in front of someone who's suffering and you have the tools at your disposal to alleviate that suffering or even eradicate it, and you act.

My mother was an introvert and quite religious. And we were brought up in the church. And when she learned that I wanted to act, she simply said: 'You cannot live here and do that.'