Robert Neelly Bellah Quotes

Leaving home in a sense involves a kind of second birth in which we give birth to ourselves.

We never get to the bottom of ourselves on our own. We discover who we are face to face and side by side with others in work, love and learning.

We have to treat others as part of who we are, rather than as a 'them' with whom we are in constant competition.

That happiness is to be attained through limitless material acquisition is denied by every religion and philosophy known to mankind, but is preached incessantly by every American television set.

...for limited purposes only, let me define religion as a set of symbolic forms and acts which relate man to the ultimate conditions of his existence.

However painful the process of leaving home, for parents and for children, the really frightening thing for both would be the prospect of the child never leaving home.

The central icon of Catholic Christianity is mother and child. That motif is so deep in not just our human experience but in our animal, biological past.

Our culture is at a critical cusp - a time that requires that we define what it means to be a citizen in a democracy. Within our nation we need to foster a greater sense of collective responsibility.

The family is in flux, and signs of trouble are widespread. Expectations remain high. But realities are disturbing.

It's clear all the way through history that practices are primary and beliefs are secondary.

The problem of the universal is difficult in every case. The universal and the particular can never be separated; they always go hand in hand.