“Love and kindness are the basis of my religious beliefs. The rituals and outward signs are not as important as one’s actions and deeds. Religion should be a path to God, not something to fight about.”

What a shame to be so afraid of failure that you stop living. My wife has a great one-liner about failure: “Never consider yourself a failure-you can always serve as a bad example.” She is right. Failure can be a better teacher than success.

If you see what you do each day as your way of loving the world and helping it heal, then life gets to be a lot different. The difference between burning up and burning out is the difference between loving what you are doing and not loving it.

Not because I’m fascinated by the human body or want to understand death, but I like people and I want to help them. That also became my problem, because I couldn’t help everyone, I couldn’t fix everyone.

I grew up with sentiments such as, “Do what will make you happy, troubles are God’s redirections that something good will come from.

If I told patients to raise their blood levels of immune globulins or killer T cells, no one would know how. But if I can teach them to love themselves and others fully, the same changes happen automatically. The truth is: love heals.

You can find examples of how little we value ourselves everywhere you look. The signs on the front of the convenience stores where Stephen lives in Florida tell the story. Beer, ice, bread and milk are the big come-ons.

How will you know whether you are letting life teach you and nourish you? If your physical senses become more sensitive to the beauty you see.

God is in everyone and everything. When we save each other or guide each other or just love each other.

Do not be afraid to love. Remember dear old Don Quixote, viewing the world with love. He saw many beautiful things no one else saw. Try being dear Don Quixote for a day.

Life is an opportunity to contribute love in your own way.

Who else do you admire, and exactly what do you admire about them? Have your roster of role models ready and waiting to help you the next time you are perplexed.

Don’t try to help people to ‘not die’, help them to enjoy life!

I find new and healing images in that dark, silent place away from emotions that control me.

I’ve learned to ask people, “You’re doing very well so what are you doing? Let me tell other people.” So what’s made me who I am, my experience.

When you wake up and act like a loving person, you realize not only that you are altered, but that the people around you are also transformed, because everybody is changed by the reception of this love.

If our wholeness is interrupted, then our health suffers, and we need to find a way to restore our sense of meaning. When we move in the direction of that meaning, we’re healing.

Who fights may lose, but who does not fight has lost already.

The harder the fighting and the longer the war, the more the infantry, and in fact all the arms, lean on the gunners.

The next few months are critical to Pakistan’s future direction as a democratic state committed to promoting peace, fighting terrorism and working for social justice.

He who fights, can lose. He who doesn’t fight, has already lost.

Every soldier must know, before he goes into battle, how the little battle he is to fight fits into the larger picture, and how the success of his fighting will influence the battle as a whole.

There’s always a chance you will see something new in a fight. Especially in boxing.

If I do not fight bigotry wherever it is, bigotry is thereby strengthened. And to the degree that it is strengthened, it will, thereby, have the power to turn on me.

I don’t have any great love for Chicago. What the hell, a childhood around Douglas Park isn’t very memorable. I remember the street fights and how you were afraid to cross the bridge ’cause the Irish kid on the other side would beat your head in. I left Chicago a long time ago.