Learning the truth has become my life's love.

The only difference between you and God is that you have forgotten you are divine.

These books can't possibly compete with centuries of established history, especially when that history is endorsed by the ultimate bestseller of all time." Faukman's eyes went wide. "Don't tell me Harry Potter is actually about the Holy Grail.""I was referring to the Bible."Faukman cringed. "I knew that.

We are creators, and yet we naively play the role of "the created." We see ourselves as helpless sheep buffeted around by the God who made us. We kneel like frightened children, begging for help, for forgiveness, for good luck. But once we realize that we are truly created in the Creator's image, we will start to understand that we, too, must be Creators. When we understand this fact, the doors will burst wide open for human potential.

Truth has power. And if we all gravitate toward similar ideas, maybe we do so because those ideas are true...written deep within us. And when we hear the truth, even if we don't understand it, we feel that truth resonate within us...vibrating with our unconscious wisdom. Perhaps the truth is not learned by us, but rather, the truth is re-called...re-membered...-re-cognized...as that which is already inside us.

…In the end we are all just searching for truth, that which is greater than ourselves.

God answers all prayers, but sometimes his answer is 'no'.

Whether or not you believe in God, you must believe this: when we as a species abandon our trust in a power greater than us, we abandon our sense of accountability. Faiths… all faiths… are admonitions that there is something we cannot understand, something to which we are accountable. With faith we are accountable to each other, to ourselves, and to a higher truth. Religion is flawed, but only because man is flawed. The church consists of a brotherhood of imperfect, simple souls wanting only to be a voice of compassion in a world spinning out of control.

Every faith in the world is based on fabrication. That is the definition of faith―acceptance of that which we imagine to be true, that which we cannot prove. Every religion describes God through metaphor, allegory, and exaggeration, from the early Egyptians through modern Sunday school. Metaphors are a way to help our minds process the unprocessible. The problems arise when we begin to believe literally in our own metaphors.Should we wave a flag and tell the Buddhists that we have proof the Buddha did not come from a lotus blossom? Or that Jesus was not born of a literal virgin birth? Those who truly understand their faiths understand the stories are metaphorical.

Omnipotent-benevolent simply means that God is all-powerful and well-meaning.''I understand the concept. It's just . . . there seems to be a contradiction.''Yes. The contradiction is pain. Man's starvation, war, sickness . . .''Exactly!' Chartrand knew the camerlengo would understand. 'Terrible things happen in this world. Human tragedy seems like proof that God could not possibly be both all-powerful and well-meaning. If He loves us and has the power to change our situation, He would prevent our pain, wouldn't He?'The camerlengo frowned. 'Would He?'Chartrand felt uneasy. Had he overstepped his bounds? Was this one of those religious questions you just didn't ask? 'Well . . . if God loves us, and He can protect us, He would have to. It seems He is either omnipotent and uncaring, or benevolent and powerless to help.''Do you have children, Lieutenant?'Chartrand flushed. 'No, signore.''Imagine you had an eight-year-old son . . . would you love him?''Of course.''Would you let him skateboard?'Chartrand did a double take. The camerlengo always seemed oddly "in touch" for a clergyman. 'Yeah, I guess,' Chartrand said. 'Sure, I'd let him skateboard, but I'd tell him to be careful.''So as this child's father, you would give him some basic, good advice and then let him go off and make his own mistakes?''I wouldn't run behind him and mollycoddle him if that's what you mean.''But what if he fell and skinned his knee?''He would learn to be more careful.'The camerlengo smiled. 'So although you have the power to interfere and prevent your child's pain, you would choose to show your love by letting him learn his own lessons?''Of course. Pain is part of growing up. It's how we learn.'The camerlengo nodded. 'Exactly.

God is found in the collection of Many. . . rather than in the One.

I am not questioning God's power! It is God who gave us reason and circumspection! It is God we serve by exercising prudence!

There comes a moment in history when ignorance is no longer a forgivable offense... a moment when only wisdom has the power to absolve. - Bertrand Zobrist

When his brain died, all of the memoriesheld in his gray matter, along with all of the knowledge he had acquired, would simply evaporatein a flood of chemical reactions.

The man now retrieved a linen cloth and stuffed it deep into Katherine’s mouth. “Death,” hewhispered to her, “should be a quiet thing.

It has always been this way. Death is followed by birth. To reach paradise, man must pass through inferno. - Bertrand Zobrist

Faith is universal. Our specific methods for understanding it are arbitrary. Some of us pray to Jesus, some of us go to Mecca, some of us study subatomic particles. In the end we are all just searching for truth, that which is greater than ourselves.

Faith ― acceptance of which we imagine to be true, that which we cannot prove.

Science tells me God must exist.My mind tells me I'll never understand God.My heart tells me I'm not meant to. [Vittoria Vetra]

Mr. Langdon, I did not ask if you believe what man says about God. I asked if you believed in God. There is a difference. Holy scripture is stories...legends and history of man's quest to understand his own need for meaning. I am not asking you to pass judgment on literature. I am asking if you believe in God. When you lie out under the stars, do you sense the divine? Do you feel in your gut that you are staring up at the work of God's hands?

Since the beginning of time, spirituality and religion have been called to fill in the gaps that science did not understand.

For centuries the church has stood by while science picked away at religion bit by bit. Debunking miracles. Training the mind to overcome the heart. Condemning religion as the opiate of the masses. They denounce God as a hallucination - a delusional crutch for those too weak to accept that life is meaningless. I could not stand by while science presumed to harness the power of God himself! Proof, you say? Yes, proof of science's ignorance! What is wrong with the admission that something exists beyond our understanding? The day science substantiates God in a lab is the day people stop needing faith!

He respected the power of faith, the benevolence of churches, the strength religion gave so many people . . . and yet, for him, the one intellectual suspension of disbelief that was imperative if one were truly going to "believe" had always proved too big an obstacle for his academic mind. "I want to believe," he heard himself say.

Buddha had said:"Each of us is a God. Each of us knows all. We need only open our minds to hear our own wisdom.

Science and religion are not at odds. Science is simply too young to understand.

Professor Langdon,' called a young man with curly hair in the back row, 'if Masonry is not a secret society, not a corporation, and not a religion, then what is it?''Well, if you were to ask a Mason, he would offer the following definition: Masonry is a system of morality, veiled in allegory and illustrated by symbols.''Sounds to me like a euphemism for "freaky cult." ''Freaky, you say?''Hell yes!' the kid said, standing up. 'I heard what they do inside those secret buildings! Weird candlelight rituals with coffins, and nooses, and drinking wine out of skulls. Now that's freaky!'Langdon scanned the class. 'Does that sound freaky to anyone else?''Yes!' they all chimed in.Langdon feigned a sad sigh. 'Too bad. If that's too freaky for you, then I know you'll never want to join my cult.'Silence settled over the room. The student from the Women's Center looked uneasy. 'You're in a cult?'Langdon nodded and lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. 'Don't tell anyone, but on the pagan day of the sun god Ra, I kneel at the foot of an ancient instrument of torture and consume ritualistic symbols of blood and flesh.'The class looked horrified.Langdon shrugged. 'And if any of you care to join me, come to the Harvard chapel on Sunday, kneel beneath the crucifix, and take Holy Communion.'The classroom remained silent.Langdon winked. 'Open your minds, my friends. We all fear what we do not understand.

Religion is like language or dress. We gravitate toward the practices with which we were raised. In the end, though, we are all proclaiming the same thing. That life has meaning. That we are grateful for the power that created us.

Religion is flawed, but only because man is flawed.

It seemed there was always a close correlation between true believers and high body counts.

Don't tell anyone, but on the pagan day of the sun god Ra, I kneel at the foot of an ancient instrument of torture and consume ritualistic symbols of blood and flesh. ...And if any of you care to join me, come to the Harvard chapel on Sunday, kneel beneath the crucifix, and take Holy Communion.

Forgiveness is God's greatest gift

The laws of physics is the canvas God laid down on which to paint his masterpiece

Great minds are always feared by lesser minds.

The power of human thought grows exponentially with the number of minds that share that thought.

Small minds have always lashed out at what they don't understand.

Knowledge grows exponentially. The more we know, the greater our ability to learn, and the faster we expand our knowledge base.

Knowledge is a tool, and like all tools, its impact is in the hands of the user.

Darkness feeds on apathy.

Knowledge is power, and the right knowledge lets man perform miraculous, almost godlike tasks.

…Our sunsets have been reduced to wavelengths and frequencies. The complexities of the universe have been shredded into mathematical equations. Even our self-worth as human beings has been destroyed.

The key to our scientific future,....is hidden in our past

Men go to far greater lengths to avoid what they fear than to obtain what they desire.

The most dangerous enemy is that which no one fears.

Nothing is more creative... nor destructive... than a brilliant mind with a purpose.

When you're a black woman, her mother said, ain't no hiding what you are. Day you try, is the day you die. Stand tall, smile bright, and let 'em wonder what secret's making you laugh.

Langdon turned to Sophie. "Who is that? What... happened?"Teabing hobbled over. "You were rescued by a knight brandishing an Excalibur made by Acme Orthopedic.

Remember death. Even for those who wield great power, life is brief. There is only one way to triumph over death, and that is by making our lives masterpieces. We must seize every opportunity to show kindness and to love fully.

If we don't embrace them, then we are as undeserving of life as the caveman who freezes to death because he's afraid to start a fire.

History is always written by the winners. When two cultures clash, the loser is obliterated, and the winner writes the history books-books which glorify their own cause and disparage the conquered foe. As Napoleon once said, 'What is history, but a fable agreed upon?

By its very nature, history is always a one-sided account.

History, if it has taught us anything at all, has taught us that the strange ideas we deride today will one day be our celebrated truths.

The measure of your faith is the measure of the pain you can endure.

Scientific advancement carries risk,” Kohler argued. “It always has. Space programs, genetic research, medicine—they all make mistakes. Science needs to survive its own blunders, at any cost. For everyone’s sake.”Vittoria was amazed at Kohler’s ability to weigh moral issues with scientific detachment. His intellect seemed to be the product of an icy divorce from his inner spirit. “You think CERN is so critical to the earth’s future that we should be immune from moral responsibility?

Truth has power. And if we all gravitate toward similar ideas maybe we do so because those ideas are true... written deep within us. And when we hear the truth, even if we don't understand it, we feel the truth, even if we don't understand it, we feel that truth resonate within us... vibrating with our unconscious wisdom. Perhaps the truth us not learned by us, but rather, the truth is re-called... re-membered... re-cognized... as that which is already inside us.

Outside the window, a bank of clouds appeared on the horizon, inching slowly across the sky, finally slipping across the Moon and blocking out its radiant light. As he clicked off his overhead light, he turned his eyes one last time to the heavens. Outside, in the newly fallen darkness, the world had been transformed. The sky had become a glistening tapestry of stars.

Forgive them, you might say, for they know not what they do. But there comes a moment in history when ignorance is no longer a forgivable offense, a moment when only wisdom has the power to absolve.

She lay outside in the courtyard, staring up at the raindrops… feeling them hit her body… trying to guess where one would land next. The nuns called again, threatening that pneumonia might make an insufferably headstrong child a lot less curious about nature.

Isn’t antimatter what fuels the U.S.S.Enterprise?

God, grant me strength to accept those things I cannot change.

I love the gray area between right and wrong.

God's will is your deepest desires.

Symbols,” Langdon said, “in no way confirm the presence of their original creators.

Leonardo believed his research had thepotential to convert millions to a more spiritual life. Last year he categorically proved the existence ofan energy force that unites us all. He actually demonstrated that we are all physically connected… thatthe molecules in your body are intertwined with the molecules in mine… that there is a single forcemoving within all of us.” Langdon felt disconcerted. And the power of God shall unite us all. “Mr. Vetra actually found a wayto demonstrate that particles are connected?”“Conclusive evidence. A recent Scientific American article hailed New Physics as a surer path to Godthan religion itself.

The more man learned, the more he realized he did not know.

As a scientist I have come to learn that information isonly as valuable as its source.

God created… light anddark, heaven and hell—science claims the same thing as religion, that the Big Bang createdeverything in the universe with an opposite.“Including matter itself, antimatter

I am the shade. Through the dolent city, i flee. Through the eternal woe, i take flight..

Since the beginning of time, the ignorant have always screamed the loudest...They celebrated their intolerance as proof of their convictions. Now after all these years, mankind had finally managed to utterly erode everything that had once been so beautiful about Jesus.

The greatest story ever told is, in fact, the greatest story ever sold

The carved stone sign in front read Building C.Imaginative title, Langdon thought

Sooner or later we've all got to let go of our past.

You can't jump for the stars if your feet hurt. And when you get where you're going, you darn well better look great!

Authors, he thought. Even the sane ones are nuts.

In the words of Lynne McTaggart: "Living consciousness somehow is the influence that turns the possibility of something into something real. The most essential ingredient in creating our universe is the consciousness that observes it.

Good science fiction has its roots in good science.

The mind of had the ability to alter the state of matter itself, and, more important, the mind had the power to encourage the physical world to move in a specific direction

Misunderstanding a culture's symbols is a common root of predujice.

When a question has no correct answer, there is only one honest response.The gray area between yes and no.Silence.

You can point to the alleged miracles of the Bible, or any other religious text, but they are nothing but old stories fabricated by man and then exaggerated over time.

Matter,” Vittoria repeated. “Blossoming out of nothing. An incredible display of subatomic fireworks. A miniature universe springing to life. He proved not only that matter can be created from nothing, but that the Big Bang and Genesis can be explained simply by accepting the presence of an enormous source of energy.”“You mean God?” Kohler demanded.“God, Buddha, The Force, Yahweh, the singularity, the unicity point—call it whatever you like—the result is the same. Science and religion support the same truth—pure energy is the father of creation.

emotionless tone hurting as much as the news

He had been haunted his whole life by a mildcase of claustrophobia—the vestige of a childhood incident he had never quite overcome.Langdon’s aversion to closed spaces was by no means debilitating, but it had always frustrated him.It manifested itself in subtle ways. He avoided enclosed sports like racquetball or squash, and he hadgladly paid a small fortune for his airy, high-ceilinged Victorian home even though economical facultyhousing was readily available. Langdon had often suspected his attraction to the art world as a youngboy sprang from his love of museums’ wide open spaces.

You’re telling me that CERN dugout millions of tons of earth just to smash tiny particles?”Kohler shrugged. “Sometimes to find truth, one must move mountains.

He warned that any church that ignored reality would not survive to enjoy the divine.

You mean the day they stop needing the church," Vittoria challenged, moving toward him. "Doubt is your last shred of control. It is doubt that brings souls to you. Our need to know that life has meaning. Man's insecurity and need for an enlightened soul assuring him everything is part of a master plan. But the church is not the only enlightened soul on the planet! We all seek God in different ways. What are you afraid of? That God will show himself somewhere other than inside these walls? That people will find him in their own lives and leave your antiquated rituals behind? Religions evolve! The mind finds answers, the heart grapples with new truths. My father was on your quest! A parallel path! Why couldn't you see that? God is not some omnipotent authority looking down from above, threatening to throw us into a pit of fire if we disobey. God is the energy that flows through the synapses of our nervous system and the chambers of our hearts! God is in all things!

Even the technology that promises to unite us, divides us. Each of us is now electronically connected to the globe, and yet we feel utterly alone.

...Understanding as had the ancients that angels and demons were identical- interchangeable archetypes- all a matter of polarity: the guardian angel who conquered your enemy in battle was perceived by your enemy as a demon destroyer...

It is said that in death, all things become clear.

Where we come from... is not nearly as startling as where we are going.

Many hands make light work.

I’m relieved to seethat even brilliant physicists make mistakes.”Kohler looked over. “What do you mean?”“Whoever wrote that note made a mistake. That column isn’t Ionic. Ionic columns are uniform in width. That one’s tapered. It’s Doric—the Greek counterpart. A common mistake.”Kohler did not smile. “The author meant it as a joke, Mr. Langdon. Ionic means containing ions—electrically charged particles. Most objects contain them.

Nothing captures human interest more than human tragedy.

Secrets,” Kohler finally said, “are a luxury we can no longer afford.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Who will guard the guards?

how can it be that the modern human mind is capable of precise logical analysis, and yet simultaneously permits us to accept religious beliefs that should crumble beneath even the slightest rational scrutiny?

Energetically speaking, antimatter is the mirror image of matter, so the two instantly cancel each other out if they come in contact.Keeping antimatter isolated from matter is a challenge, of course, because everything on earth is made of matter. The samples have to be stored without ever touching anything at all—even air.

the Z-particle Pure energy—no mass at all. It may well be thesmallest building block in nature. Matter is nothing but trapped energy.

Leonardo believed his research had thepotential to convert millions to a more spiritual life. Last year he categorically proved the existence ofan energy force that unites us all. He actually demonstrated that we are all physically connected… that the molecules in your body are intertwined with the molecules in mine… that there is a single force moving within all of us.

One square yard of drag will slow a falling body almost twenty percent.

Madness breeds madness.

Oftentimes, those special brains, the ones that are capable of focusing more intently than others, do so at the expense of emotional maturity

Book publishing would be so much easier without the authors.

The media is the right arm of anarchy.

No love is greater than that of a father for His son.

The Pentacle - The ancients envisioned their world in two halves - masculine and feminine. Their gods and goddesses worked to keep a balance of power. Yin and Yang. When male and female were balanced, there was harmony in the world. When they were unbalanced there was chaos.

We were at sixty thousand feet. You’re thirty percent lighter upthere.

If antimatter and matter make contact, both are destroyedinstantly. Physicists call the process ‘annihilation.

How do you feel?”He rubbed his stomach. “Like I’ve been eating Styrofoam.

Very little in any organized faith is truly original. Religions are not born from scratch. They grow from one another. Modern religion is a collage ... an assimilated historical record of man's quest to understand the divine.

So long as they speak your name, you shall never die.

PHI is one H of a lot cooler than PI!

Death is only a byproduct of terrorism.

hoped to prove that science and religion are two totally compatible fields—two different approaches to finding the same truth.

... [T]he other lesson history has taught us - that tyranny and oppression are no match for compassion ... that the fanatical shouts of the bullies of the world are invariably silenced by the unified voices of decency that rise up to meet them.

Everything does fall. It must be gravity.

The Bible did not arrive by fax from heaven. The Bible is the product of man, my dear. Not of God. The Bible did not fall magically from the clouds. Man created it as a historical record of tumultuous times, and it has evolved through countless translations, additions, and revisions. History has never had a definitive version of the book.