“The beginning of love is the will to let those we love be perfectly themselves.”

Before we can realize who we really are, we must become conscious of the fact that the person we think we are, here and now, is at best an impostor and a stranger.

For although God is right with us and in us and out of us and all through us, we have to go on journeys to find him.

We cannot achieve greatness unless we lose all interest in being great.

You do not need to know precisely what is happening, or exactly where it is all going. What you need is to recognize the possibilities and challenges offered by the present moment, and to embrace them with courage, faith and hope.

Instead of hating the people you think are war-makers, hate the appetites and disorder in your own soul, which are the causes of war. If you love peace, then hate injustice, hate tyranny, hate greed – but hate these things in yourself, not in another.

The whole idea of compassion is based on a keen awareness of the interdependence of all these living beings, which are all part of one another, and all involved in one another.

Violence is not completely fatal until it ceases to disturb us.

How can I be sincere if I am constantly changing my mind to conform with the shadow of what I think others expect of me?

But if you want to identify me, ask me not where I live, or what I like to eat, or how I comb my hair, but ask me what I think I am living for.

The more you try to avoid suffering, the more you suffer, because smaller and more insignificant things begin to torture you, in proportion to your fear of being hurt. The one who does most to avoid suffering is, in the end, the one who suffers most.

Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.

We are not converted only once in our lives but many times and this endless series of conversions and inner revolutions leads to our transformation.

Actions are the doors and windows of being. Unless we act, we have no way of knowing what we are.

In a world of noise, confusion and conflict it is necessary that there be places of silence, inner discipline and peace. In such places love can blossom.

For perfect hope is achieved on the brink of despair, when instead of falling over the edge, we find ourselves walking on air.

No one is so wrong as the man who knows all the answers.

I’m still at the beginning of my career. It’s all a little new, and I’m still learning as I go.

But then, I suppose, when with the benefit of hindsight one begins to search one’s past for such ‘turning points’, one is apt to start seeing them everywhere.

No, when the fight begins within himself, / A man’s worth something.

When I began to rap, I wasn’t taking it real serious. As I start seeing good things, it’s getting serious.

When all the thoughts are concerning one thing and the person loses interest in other things, the melancholy begins.

Prejudice, a dirty word, and faith, a clean one, have something in common: they both begin where reason ends.

In the beginning, before the arrival of the white men, I had considered myself neutral. I had wanted neither side to win, neither the army nor the rebels. As it turned out, both sides lost.

So valuable to heaven is the dignity of the human soul that every member of the human race has a guardian angel from the moment the person begins to be.