29 Quotes by Robert Neelly Bellah

Women have entered the work force . . . partly to express their feelings of self-worth . . . partly because today many families would not survive without two incomes, partly because they are not at all sure their marriages will last. The day of the husband as permanent meal-ticket is over, a fact most women recognize, however they feel about "women's liberation.

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.

We're [humans] running great risks of doing things that will not be good for us. The cost can be very high indeed if we reach the point where we can't adapt to our own increasingly rapid adaptations. We run the risk of early extinction. So this certainly isn't a triumphalist story, but it is trying to get at what, in the very long run, leads to the amazing creatures that we are.

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.

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.

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 academic world is one of the few places where prejudice is supposed to be totally banned, and we’re politically correct on everything, but it’s still a place where you can attack religion out of utter, complete, bottomless ignorance and not be considered to have done anything wrong.

We have to understand ourselves as a part of the narrative of evolution. And evolution never stops. The notion that human evolution at some point stopped and “history” took over is absurd, though it is widespread among various social scientists and humanists.