A gentleman is not born but crafted. He had to work on himself in the same way as a sculptor shaped a rough stone and made it a thing of beauty.

It's a great event to get outside and enjoy nature. I find it very exciting no matter how many times I see bald eagles.

Look into your own heart, discover what it is that gives you pain and then refuse, under any circumstance whatsoever, to inflict that pain on anybody else.

Jesus did not spend a great deal of time discoursing about the trinity or original sin or the incarnation, which have preoccupied later Christians. He went around doing good and being compassionate.

Each of the world religions has its own particular genius, its own special insight into the nature and requirements of compassion, and has something unique to teach us.

I like silence; I'm a gregarious loner and without the solitude, I lose my gregariousness.

Compassion is not an option. It's the key to our survival.

Religious people often prefer to be right rather than compassionate. Often, they don't want to give up their egotism. They want their religion to endorse their ego, their identity.

Religion isn’t about believing things. It's ethical alchemy. It’s about behaving in a way that changes you, that gives you intimations of holiness and sacredness.

I am not interested in the afterlife. Religion is supposed to be about losing your ego, not preserving it eternally in optimum conditions.

Surely it's better to love others, however messy and imperfect the involvement, than to allow one's capacity for love to harden.

There is no friend like an old friend who has shared our morning days, no greeting like his welcome, no homage like his praise.

Whatever we have words for, that we have already got beyond.

I suppose I passed it a hundred times, But I always stop for a minute. And look at the house, the tragic house, The house with nobody in it.

It is a wretched thing to live on the fame of others.

So the storm passed and every one was happy.

I came into the music world in 1988 with a song called Ooh La La, that was like a breath of fresh air in Haitian music.

The most attractive quality of all is dignity.

The most shocking act, closely examined, is just a louder version of some habitual gesture.

Nice friendship is like the breathing air, you will never see it but you will always feel its presence.

So holy and so perfect is my love, And I in such a poverty of grace, That I shall think it a most plenteous crop To glean the broken ears after the man That the main harvest reaps.