Quotations relevant to Perennial Philosophy & Universalism

"I believe in the fundamental Truth of all great religions of the world. I believe they are all God given and I believe they were necessary for the people to whom these religions were revealed. And I believe that if only we could all of us read the scriptures of the different faiths from the standpoint of the followers of these faiths, we should find that they were at the bottom all one and were all helpful to one another." - M K Gandhi
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QUAKER UNIVERSALISTS
"The Light shines through all." George Fox 1656

"The humble , meek, merciful, just, pious and devout souls are everywhere of one religion; and when death has taken off the masks, they will know one another, though the divers liveries they wear here make them strangers." - William Penn 1693


"There is a principle which is pure, placed in the human mind, which in different places and ages has different names; it is, however, pure and proceeds from God. It is deep and inward, confined to no forms of religion nor excluded from any, where the heart stands in perfect sincerity. In whomsoever this takes root and grows of what nation soever, they become brethren." - John Woolman 1762


"Even as a tree has a single trunk but many branches and leaves, so there is one true and perfect religion, but it becomes many religions as it passes through the human medium. The one Religion is beyond all speech. Imperfect men and women put it into such language as they can command and their words are interpreted by others equally imperfectly. Hence the necessity of tolerance, which does not mean indifference to one's own faith, but a more intelligent and purer love for it. True knowledge of religion breaks down barriers between faith and faith." - Mahatma Gandhi


"It is a bold and colossal claim that we put forward - that the whole of life is sacramental, that there are innumerable 'means of grace' by which God is revealed and communicated - through nature and through human fellowship and through a thousand things that may become the 'outward and visible sign' of 'an inward and spiritual grace'." - A. Barratt Brown 1932