We have to build bridges that are stronger than the bombs that other people might throw

To see the other side, to defend another people, not despite your tradition but because of it, is the heart of pluralism

Show me a religion that doesn't care about compassion. Show me a religion that doesn't care about stewardship of the environment. Show me a religion that doesn't care about hospitality.

When thousands of people discover that their story is also someone else's story, they have the chance to write a new story together.

I thought about the meaning of pluralism in a world where the forces that seek to divide us are strong. I came to one conclusion: We have to save each other. It’s the only way to save ourselves.

One of the best ways of showing pluralism in action is for people to do service together, and that has so many benefits.

What we pluralists have to do is to say to the people standing on the faith line, particularly the young ones, no, pluralism is the wish of the creator. It is the greatest opportunity for humanity.

I as a Muslim believe deeply in the differences that are within Islam. But I also take seriously the idea that we have to come to know one another.

A social entrepreneur is somebody who knows how to make an idea reality.

Is all ordained? Foreknowledge is not fate, and we may choose our paths, yet fate says we may not choose them. So if fate is real, do we have a choice?

Brave Americans in past wars didn't die for the actual flag--they died for the freedom it represents, including the freedom to burn it.

Humor is proof that everything is going to be all right with God nevertheless.

Die and born again, die and born again. It's the story of my life.

Brethren, happiness is not our being's end and aim. The Christian's aim is perfection, not happiness; and every one of the sons of God must have something of that spirit which marked his Master.

If rulers refuse to consider poems as crimes, then someone must commit crimes that serve the function of poetry, or texts that possess the resonance of terrorism.

The important thing right now is that the economy still needs customers. We still need people to go out there and spend money.

If you want the Divine to become alive within you, first of all you as a human being have to become absolutely alive.

I'd love to tell you I had some deep revelation on my way down, that I came to terms with my own mortality, laughed in the face of death, et cetera. The truth? My only thought was: Aaaaggghhhhh!

And the problem is, I can apologise for the information that turned out to be wrong, but I can't, sincerely at least, apologise for removing Saddam.