Pastors started killing their church members and church members killed pastors. Husbands killed wives. It's a situation no one can describe.

Facts are almost irrelevant to most people. We make decisions based on emotion and then justify them later with whatever facts we can scrounge up in our defense.

If we want to change things, we must first change ourselves. If we want to play - if we want to change the world - we must first show up on the field to score.

I think I'm a happy man, and I'm a blessed man. I have been able to adjust to any situation, whatever it was, in my life.

"There is no greater gift to an insecure leader that quite matches a vague enemy who can be used to whip up fear and hatred among the population."

This is why I say that the individual's most potent weapon is a stubborn belief in the triumph of common decency.

We are all born with a powerful herd instinct and it can force otherwise rational people to act in inexplicable ways.

Our days are so few, our existences so complicated. As long as we're breathing we shouldn't further complicate our lives.

History never seems to teach us any lessons. But that is no reason to give up.

Everybody was willing to give me a job. But I wanted to do something different. I saw myself as an independent person, self-employed.

One of the great Sufis said: 'A saint is a saint unless he knows that he is one.

Once upon a time, man had a love affair with fire.

To burn the ideal of a great love into the soul of youth in letters of fire - that is to give him a real moral strength.

In the 21st century, I believe the mission of the United Nations will be defined by a new, more profound awareness of the sanctity and dignity of every human life, regardless of race or religion.

I like boring things.

I used to be married to a woman who pursued every spiritual trend with tremendous passion and dragged me along. I don't believe in anything. I'd seen mediums and readers.

Just as you would not neglect seeds that you planted with hope that they will bear vegetables and fruits and flowers, so must you attend to nourish the garden of your becoming.

...if one thing frightens people, it is that so much happens, on earth and out in space, the reasons for which seem somehow to escape them, and they fill in the gap by putting it down to the gods.

Life is a toy made of glass; it appears to be of inestimable price, but in reality it is very cheap.

Too often we honor swagger and bluster and the wielders of force; too often we excuse those who are willing to build their own lives on the shattered dreams of others.