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.

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.

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.

The hajj is one of the five essential practices of Islam; when they make the pilgrimage to Mecca, Muslims ritually act out the central principles of their faith.

Elizabeth was not playing for the sake of exhibiting her virtuosity: she played for joy.

Don't let someone feel like they are following you and don't let yourself feel like you are following someone.

Be not forgetful to entertain strangers

The hunter does not seek dead game.

I met soldiers coming back from war and I was impressed by their description of PTSD, all the symptoms: the outburst of violence, the impossibility to cope with reality anymore, all that stuff.

I am only a mouthpiece through which to tell the story of lynching and I have told it so often that I know it by heart. I do not have to embellish; it makes its own way.

Too often I am jealous and my jealousy leads me to say things-things-that I regret.

When you just get mixed up & there's too much going on, then it's time to pick up your guitar.

Having a newborn you have to teach yourself what patience is or you'll go crazy.