“Religion has become an impersonal affair, an institutional loyalty. It survives on the level of activities rather than in the stillness of commitment.”

Society today is no longer in revolt against particular laws which it finds alien, unjust, and imposed, but against law as such, against the principle of law.

Self-respect is the fruit of discipline; the sense of dignity grows with the ability to say no to oneself.

Loyal to the presence of the ultimate in the common, we may be able to make it clear that man is more than man, that in doing the finite he may perceive the infinite .

Then comes the insight that All is God. One still realizes that the world is as it was, but it does not matter, it does not affect one’s faith.

Life without commitment is not worth living.

People are anxious to save up financial means for old age; they should also be anxious to prepare a spiritual means for old age….

All that is left is to us is our being horrified at the loss of our sense of horror.

However, we must not convert an inclination into an axiom that just as man’s perceptions cannot operate outside time and space, so his motivations cannot operate outside expediency;

That man can never transcend his own self. The most fatal trap into which thinking may fall is the equation of existence and expediency.

The man who has not suffered – what does he know anyway?

Wisdom, maturity, tranquility do not come all of a sudden when we retire.

Speech has power. Words do not fade. What starts out as a sound, ends in a deed.

Prayer is our humble answer to the inconceivable surprise of living.

I have one talent, and that is the capacity to be tremendously surprised, surprised at life, at ideas. This is to me the supreme Hasidic imperative: Don’t be old. Don’t be stale.

In the midst of our applauding the feats of civilization, the Bible flings itself like a knife slashing our complacency; remind us that God, too, has a voice in history.

A test of a people is how it behaves toward the old. It is easy to love children. Even tyrants and dictators make a point of being fond of children.

One of the very best ways to keep in touch with your own ups and downs is to keep track of what activities energize you and which drain you – on a regular basis.

There was a lot curious activities emerging in London, Amsterdam, and Berlin back then developing some fiercely fuzzy of synth-like effects way outside the norm which really blew the lid off things.

I was fortunate to have parents who understood the importance of exposing their kids to different sports, different cultures and different activities in order to discover what we liked and what we didn’t like. They didn’t push us, they just gave us many things to choose from.

The left is in charge of much of our organized thought and decision-making and tends to suppress the right side, which generally rules creative activities.

I spend a lot of time talking to people who disagree with me – I would go so far as to say that it’s my favourite leisure activity.

If sex and creativity are often seen by dictators as subversive activities, it’s because they lead to the knowledge that you own your own body (and with it your own voice), and that’s the most revolutionary insight of all.

I’m always looking, as an actor, for activities. I think it’s far more interesting to watch what people do than what they say.