All of spiritual practice is a matter of relationship: to ourselves, to others, to life's situations.

The heart is like a garden. It can grow compassion or fear, resentment or love. What seeds will you plant there?

If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete.

The things that matter most in our lives are not fantastic or grand. They are the moments when we touch one another.

Most of us have spent our lives caught up in plans, expectations, ambitions for the future; in regrets, guilt or shame about the past. To come into the present is to stop the war.

We do not have to improve ourselves; we just have to let go of what blocks our heart.

Do not doubt your own basic goodness. In spite of all confusion and fear, you are born with a heart that knows what is just, loving, and beautiful.

In the end, just three things matter: How well we have lived How well we have loved How well we have learned to let go

Have respect for yourself, and patience and compassion. With these, you can handle anything.

Let go of the battle. Breathe quietly and let it be. Let your body relax and your heart soften. Open to whatever you experience without fighting.

The basic principle of spiritual life is that our problems become the very place to discover wisdom and love.

Somebody dies and people eat your food. Funny how that works.

Leading up to Christmas, there was talk of Santa. But I’d never even heard of Santa. Bunty, one of the workers who I grew to love, tried to explain, ‘He brings little angels like you, presents.

Whenever society begins to create policies and laws rooted in fear and anger, there will be abuse and injustice.

My own American Dream was to serve my country as best I could and make a difference in America - and in the world.

I don't like being negative to people who are so nice to me.

In politics, love is a stranger, and when it intrudes upon it nothing is being achieved except hypocrisy.

[she] had a great reputation for unselfishness because she was always giving up a lot of things she didn't want.

A husband only worries about a particular Other Man; a wife distrusts her whole species.

The only beautiful things are the things that do not concern us.

Whether you're with a group of people, whether you're playing music or whether you're by yourself, even if it's written material, you have to be listening.