“The measure of our rationality determines the degree of vividness with which we appreciate the needs of other life, the extent to which we become conscious of the real character of our own motives and impulses.”

That is the truth about man – that he has a curious kind of dignity, but also a curious kind of misery, and that these forms of agnosticism don’t understand.

The recalcitrant forces in the historical drama have a power and persistence beyond our reckoning.

We have previously suggested that philanthropy combines genuine pity with the display of power and that the latter element explains why the powerful are more inclined to be generous than to grant social justice.

Humour is, in fact, a prelude to faith; and laughter is the beginning of prayer … Laughter is swallowed up in prayer and humour is fulfilled by faith.

Religion is so frequently a source of confusion in political life, and so frequently dangerous to democracy, precisely because it introduces absolutes into the realm of relative values.

Justice requires that we carefully weigh rights and privileges and assure that each member of a community receives his due share. Love does not weigh rights and privileges too carefully because it prompts each to bear the burden of the other.

It’s always wise to seek the truth in our opponents’ error, and the error in our own truth.

Great talents have some admirers, but few friends.

The chief source of man’s inhumanity to man seems to be the tribal limits of his sense of obligation to other men.

Even if you fall on the runway, I wouldn’t blame you. It would mean that we made a mistake in choosing you.

For artists and intellectuals today, what is most needed is to be clear about social responsibility, because that is what most people automatically give up. Just to protect yourself as an individual is very political.

One or the other she was going to have by any means necessary.

Gosh, I made so many mistakes. I mean I still make mistakes. We all do.

When things are really great, it just means everything’s in it’s place.

Harriet Tubman didn’t have strategy meetings or a movement behind her, she was the movement.

If you think that people should be nice to one another, then by all means be nice. But when you project that belief onto the people and the world around you as if it were an objective reality, or worse still.

Seeing my face on a poster is surreal. You look at it and it’s not quite like you, if you know what I mean… it’s almost a third person kind of thing. I still find it strange.