We fail to move beyond what is safe, we abandon our dreams in favor of what is sure rather than strive for what is best for us.

Darkness deserves gratitude. It is the alleluia point at which we learn to understand that all growth does not take place in the sunlight.

Beware the religion that turns you against another one. It's unlikely that it's really religion at all.

Hope is not a matter of waiting for things outside of us to get better. It is about getting better inside about what is going on outside.

We talk religion in a world that worships the bread but does not distribute it, that practices ritual rather than righteousness, that confesses but does not repent.

Grief is a sign that we loved something more than ourselves. . . . Grief makes us worthy to suffer with the rest of the world.

Compassion makes no distinction between friends and enemies, neighbors and outsiders, compatriots and foreigners. Compassion is the gate to human community.

When souls really touch, it is forever. Then space and time disappear, and all that remains is the consciousness that we are not alone in life.

Compassion is not sympathy. Compassion is mercy. It is a commitment to take responsibility for the suffering of others.

Oppressors do not get to be oppressors in a single sweep. They manage it because little by little, we make them that. We overlook too much in the beginning and wonder why we lost control in the end.

Compassion is the ability to understand how difficult it is for people to be the best of what they want to be at all times.

Law of Airlines: The shorter the time between flights, the greater the distance between gates.

The problem is that the atmosphere does not yet exist in which honest police officers can act without fear of ridicule or reprisal from fellow officers.

Sets of lines can say something about the direction and nature of the light. They are used by great fresco painters as a sign for shade.

Only fools wait when their enemies are coming, to see if they may prove to be friends.

You pray for the hungry. Then you feed them. That's how prayer works.

Rejoice that man is hurled, From change to change unceasingly, His soul's wings never furled!

Banning guns because of their misuse is like banning the First Amendment because one might libel or slander.

What a man wants is a mate and what a woman wants is infinite security.

When one emphasizes, as Jacques Derrida once remarked, one always overemphasizes.

Gorillaz virtually changed my wife...sorry, I mean, life...no, actually, it was my wife.