“Difficult as it is really to listen to someone in affliction, it is just as difficult for him to know that compassion is listening to him.”

Religion as a source of consolation is an obstacle to true faith.

Fortunately the sky is beautiful everywhere.

Everything which originates from pure love is lit with the radiance of beauty.

In struggling against anguish one never produces serenity; the struggle against anguish only produces new forms of anguish.

It is not through the way in which someone speaks about God that I can see whether that person has passed through the crucible of Divine Love, but through the way the person speaks to me about things here on earth.

Everything beautiful has a mark of eternity.

We only possess what we renounce; what we do not renounce escapes from us.

Power is the supreme end for all those who have not understood.

Human existence is so fragile a thing and exposed to such dangers that I cannot love without trembling.

What a country calls its vital economic interests are not the things which enable its citizens to live, but the things which enable it to make war. Petrol is more likely than wheat to be a cause of international conflict.

It is grace that forms the void inside us and it is grace that can fill the void.

We are like plants which have the one choice of being in or out of the light.

Imagination and fiction make up more than three quarters of our real life.

Art is the symbol of the two noblest human efforts: to construct and to refrain from destruction.

Patriotism is idolatry of the self.

Every being cries out in silence to be read differently. Do not be indifferent to these cries.

The purpose of the journey is compassion. When you have come past the pairs of opposites, you have reached compassion.

The underlying issues, the psychological motives, in all my movies have been the same, he said. Personal responsibility and friendship, the importance of a compassionate life as opposed to a passionate life.

An enemy to whom you show kindness becomes your friend.

Volunteers are the only human beings on the face of the earth who reflect this nation’s compassion, unselfish caring, patience, and just plain love for one another.

All human beings are limbs of the same body. God created them from the same essence. If one part of the body suffers pain, then the whole body is affected. If you are indifferent to this pain, you cannot be called a human being.

Now is the time to understand That all your ideas of right and wrong Were just a child’s training wheels to be laid aside When you finally live With veracity And love.

The most important thing on Earth is for all of us to make this sentence true: Compassion is what people do.

It is much easier to show compassion to animals. They are never wicked.