“The artist should preach nothing-not even his own autonomy. His art should speak its own truth, and in so doing it will be in harmony with every other kind of truth- moral, metaphysical, mystical.”

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.

You are made in the image of what you desire.

When I pray for peace, I pray not only that the enemies of my own country may cease to want war, but above all that my country will cease to do the things that make war inevitable.

Time eventually positions most photographs, even the most amateurish, at the level of art.

Ideas come from everything.

In place of a hermeneutics we need an erotics of art.

Teaching might even be the greatest of the arts since the medium is the human mind and spirit.

Art is the contemplation of the world in a state of grace.

Only by art can we get outside ourselves, instead of seeing only one world, our own, we see it under multiple forms.

We think and name in one world, we live and feel in another.

The supreme question about a work of art is out of how deep a life does it spring.