“Transformation begins in you, wherever you are, whatever has happened, however you are suffering. Transformation is always possible.”

Give a man a fish and feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and feed him for a lifetime. Teach a man to cycle and he will realize fishing is stupid and boring.

We may be surprised at the people we find in heaven. God has a soft spot for sinners. His standards are quite low.

The path of joy was connection and the path of sorrow was separation.

Religion is like a knife: you can either use it to cut bread, or stick in someone’s back.

There comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out of the river. We need to go upstream to find out why they’re falling in.

A person is a person through other persons; you can’t be human in isolation; you are human only in relationships.

If you are setting out to be joyful you are not going to end up being joyful. You’re going to find yourself turned in on yourself. It’s like a flower. You open, you blossom, really because of other people.

Much depends on your attitude. If you are filled with negative judgment and anger, then you will feel separate from other people. You will feel lonely.

Forgiving is not forgetting; its actually remembering–remembering and not using your right to hit back. Its a second chance for a new beginning. And the remembering part is particularly important. Especially if you dont want to repeat what happened.

In the end generosity is the best way of becoming more, more, and more joyful.

To protect our children, we must talk to them about rape.

A very important but difficult piece of renewing relationships is accepting responsibility for our part in any conflict.

We need other human beings in order to be human. I am because other people are. A person is entitled to a stable community life, and the first of these communities is the family.

If you want to keep people subjugated, the last thing you place in their hands is a Bible. There’s nothing more radical, nothing more revolutionary, nothing more subversive against injustice and oppression than the Bible.

Forgiveness is truly the grace by which we enable another person to get up, and get up with dignity, to begin anew.

I wish I could shut up, but I can’t, and I won’t.

Look with favour upon a bold beginning.

Few people dare now to say that two beings have fallen in love because they have looked at each other. Yet it is in this way that love begins, and in this way only.

There is no civilization that did not begin with art, Whether it was drawing a line in the sand, painting a cave or dancing.

Force and mind are opposites; morality ends where a gun begins.

A bank is a place where they lend you an umbrella in fair weather and ask for it back when it begins to rain.

Love makes everything complicated, and emotions always go wild in the beginning. But when it’s real, you should hold on tight.

Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin.

A man’s real education begins after he has left school. True education is gained through the discipline of life.