“Simple kindness may be the most vital key to the riddle of how human beings can live with each other in peace…and care properly for this planet we all share.”

I could characterize nearly any spiritual practice as simply this: identify and quit, identify and quit, identify and quit. Identify the myriad forms of limitation and delusion we place upon ourselves, and muster the courage to quit each one.

The cause of all our personal problems and nearly all the problems of the world can be summed up in a single sentence.

The gap between our sincere values and our actual behavior is the source of all self-hatred.

Like a child standing in a beautiful park with his eyes shut tight, there’s no need to imagine trees, flowers, deer, birds, and sky.

Until we reflect basic kindness in everything we do, our political gestures will be fleeting and fragile.

This is the first step toward understanding the process of real, lasting change: simply knowing with certainty that you can do whatever you need to do.

Without loving and caring for others, most of us stand little chance of communing with God/the Divine Wisdom, no matter how many years we may spend in silent prayer.

Little by little deep inside us, the diamond shines, the eyes open, the dawn rises, we become what we already are.

Little by little, deep inside us, the diamond shines, the eyes open, the dawn rises, we become what we already are.

We pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, have a good laugh about human nature, and get on with our journeys.

We’re all doing time. As soon as we get born, we find ourselves assigned to one little body, one set of desires and fears, one family, city, state, country, and planet.

You may study with the highest teachers, but you will find no one but yourself teaching you. You may travel the world over, yet find nothing but yourself, reflected the world over.

So if you now find yourself in a cell, take heart that of all the teachers in the world, out of all the places in the world, you still have with you the only ultimate ingredient of your journey: yourself.

I would welcome, quite frankly, a discussion of morality in this country. I think it would be a wonderful thing if we bring back our Judeo-Christian values once again. I think it could do nothing but help us. I would be all in favor of that.

If there’s anything mean in a feller, a litter authority will bring it out.

It just takes a pebble to bring down a good man.

Evil may at some future period bring forth good; and good may bring forth evil, both equally unexpected.

It is an objective which when achieved, will bring about the fulfillment of the aspirations of Africans and people of African descent everywhere. It will at the same time advance the triumph of the international socialist revolution.

I´m not going to bring a child into the world, and love her, and bring her up, just so that some man may want to sleep with her so much that he’s willing to provide her with board and lodging for the rest of her life.

I loved you long before you loved me. It’s the only thing i have you beat at, and i’ll bring it up every chance i get.

Every authentic poem contributes to the labor of poetry… to bring together what life has separated or violence has torn apart…