Once you begin to acknowledge random acts of kindness-both the ones you have received and the ones you have given - you can no longer believe that what you do does not matter.

Gratitude is like a flashlight. If you go out in your yard at night and turn on a flashlight, you suddenly can see what's there. It was always there, but you couldn't see it in the dark.

I wonder why it is that we so often imprison ourselves in the opinions of other people. There can be no punishment worse than conspiring in our own diminishment.

Kindness is twice blessed. It blesses the one who gives it with a sense of his or her own capacity to love, and the person who receives it with a sense of the beneficence of the universe.

Living on purpose requires us to find what we love fiercely, give it all we've got and then pass it on, as if it were a torch, to those who follow

To explore what it would mean to live fully, sensually alive and passionately on purpose, I have to drop my preconceived ideas of who and what I am.

I need to take a sacred pause, as if I were a sun warmed rock in the center of a rushing river.

Reignite the fire in your heart. Live on purpose.

I choose to inhabit my days, to allow my living to open me, to make me less afraid, more accessible, to loosen my heart until it becomes a wing, a torch, a promise.

I will not die an unlived life...I choose to inhabit my days, to allow my living to open me...I choose to risk my significance.

That which came to me as seed goes to the next as blossom, and that which came to me as blossom, goes on as fruit.

In an effort to eliminate the possibility of any rival growing up, some monopolists would sacrifice democracy itself.

My mother had a look on her face that I'll never forget. It was one of complete despair and horror, for losing Bing, for being so foolish as to think she could use faith to change fate.

Medicare debates in Congress should result in better Medicare benefits for all our nation's seniors. We're not asking for special treatment for rural America, just a fair deal.

Life can be a fearful thing. Everyone needs someone drawing alongside, saying “You can do it. Don’t quit.” Everyone needs someone who believes in them. Everyone needs encouragement.

It's impossible for anyone to meet the expectation of being the savior of the world.

I think it's quite jarring and exciting when you see someone in the thrall of being completely transported by the music they're sharing with you.

Dance for yourself. If someone understands, good. If not, no matter.

And all the time he was enjoying his badness, hugging it to him as though it were a friend, and not caring a bit.

And tell him it's quite true that the best of the philosophers are of no use to their fellows; but that he should blame, not the philosophers, but those who fail to make use of them.

I'm in favor of everything with regards to ending institutional racism.