“When religion speaks only in the name of authority rather than with the voice of compassion, its message becomes meaningless.”

Each day enrapture me with your marvelous things without number. …I do not ask to see the reason for it all: I ask only to share the wonder of it all.

Man’s true fulfillment depends on communion with that which transcends him.

The degree to which one is sensitive to other people’s suffering, to other (people’s) humanity, is the index of one’s own humanity

Trust is the core of human relationships, of gregariousness among men.

And yet we must not regard this revolt as entirely negative. The energy that rejects many obsolete laws is an entirely positive impulse for renewal of life and law.

To abstain completely from all enjoyments may be easy. Yet to enjoy life and retain spiritual integrity – there is the challenge.

Philosophy, to be relevant, must offer us a wisdom to live by.

Philosophy may be defined as the art of asking the right question…awareness of the problem outlives all solutions.

To us injustice is injurious to the welfare of the people; to the prophets it is a deathblow to existence: to us, an episode; to them, a catastrophe, a threat to the world.

Awe enables us to see in the world intimations of the divine, to sense in small things the beginning of infinite significance

In the darkest night to be certain of the dawn…to go through Hell and to continue to trust in the goodness of God-this is the challenge and the way.

Prayer cannot bring water to parched fields, or mend a broken bridge, or rebuild a ruined city; but prayer can water an arid soul, mend a broken heart, and rebuild a weakened will.

Everything is phenomenal; everything is incredible; never treat life casually. To be spiritual is to be amazed.

Never once in my life did I ask God for success or wisdom or power or fame. I asked for wonder, and he gave it to me.

When faith is completely replaced by creed, worship by discipline, love by habit; when the crisis of today is ignored because of the splendors of the past

Our concern is not how to worship in the catacombs but how to remain human in the skyscrapers.

A curious thought experiment. . . Nietzsche’s message to us was to live life in such a way that we would be willing to repeat the same life eternally

We would not think them so beautiful if they did not fly, or if they flew straight and briskly like bees, or if they stung, or above all if they did not enact the perturbing mystery of metamorphosis: the latter assumes in our eyes the value of a badly decoded message, a symbol, a sign.

Selsdon Man is designing a system of society for the ruthlessness and the pushing, the uncaring. His message to the rest is: you’re out on your own.

I think it’s very important to send the message that, while parents are needed to remind you to practice and occasionally force you to finish things… they also need to learn to respect you. You as an individual, ultimately, are the captain of where you’re going.

When you flop, that’s just another message that you don’t know how to play me. Stand up and take your medicine like a man.

My message to little kids who aspire to be anything they want to be is to listen to their parents.

Always be sexy. I salute that message.

In fact, the existence of the death squads had a meaning, a message: ‘We, the master race, are your destroyers, but you are no better than we are; if we so wish, and we do so wish, we can destroy not only your bodies, but also your souls, just as we have destroyed ours.