“Wise criticism always begins with self-criticism.”

But the affection and care for the old, the incurable, the helpless are the true gold mines of a culture.

The liturgical movement must become a revolutionary movement seeking to overthrow the forces that continue to destroy the promise, the hope, the vision.

Proximity to the crowd, to the majority view, spells the death of creativity. For a soul can create only when alone, and some are chosen for the flowering that takes place in the dark avenues of night.

Self-respect is the root of discipline

This is one of the goals of the Jewish way of living: to experience commonplace deeds as spiritual adventures, to feel the hidden love and wisdom in all things.

Aeons hence, when of many of our cherished theories only shreds will remain, that cosmic tapestry will continue to shine.

For many of us the march from Selma to Montgomery was about protest and prayer. Legs are not lips and walking is not kneeling. And yet our legs uttered songs.

Celebration is a confrontation, giving attention to the transcendent meaning of one’s actions.

Self-respect is the fruit of discipline.

What we cannot comprehend by analysis, we become aware of in awe.

When faith becomes an heirloom rather than a living fountain; when religion speaks only in the name of authority rather than with the voice of compassion, its message becomes meaningless.

It is not critical knowledge but a risk of the heart which initiates affection and preserves loyalty in our fellow men.

The anchor of meaning resides in an abyss, deeper than the reach of despair.

I am commanded therefore I am.

Only in His presence shall we learn that the glory of humankind is not in its will to power but in its power of compassion.

Sometimes we wish the world could cry and tell us about that which made it pregnant with fear-filling grandeur. Sometimes we wish our own heart would speak of that which made it heavy with wonder.

I often went entire days without speaking – unable to get a word in over my inner taskmaster, who never shut up:

We must leave the entire collection of conditioned thought behind and let ourselves be led by the inner thread of silence into the unknown, beyond where all paths end, to that place where we go innocently or not at all, not once but continually.

Most people don’t get out of childhood, or adolescence, without being wounded for telling the truth. Someone says ‘you can’t say that’ or ‘you shouldn’t say that’ or ‘that wasn’t appropriate’.

At a certain point we need to grow up; we need to look inside ourselves for our inner guidance. There are things most human beings know; they just don’t want to know them.

Nothing is more stimulating and more salutary to (or for) the inner (or inward) development than the exemple of men devoted to the good.

Only a moral education based on free inner discipline can bring to bear a salutary action and lead to a true morality.

Moral was a principle of inner life, whereas in our days, most of the time one is content to adhere to an official moral, that we recognize in theory, but that one does not care to put into practice.

the great mountains, and the sea. He means that he loves an inner air, an inner light in which freedom lives and in which a man can draw the breath of self-respect.