It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.

Anyone who does not believe in miracles is not a realist.

Preservation of one’s own culture does not require contempt or disrespect for other cultures.

Human greatness does not lie in wealth or power, but in character and goodness. People are just people, and all people have faults and shortcomings, but all of us are born with a basic goodness.

Happiness doesn’t depend on what we have, but it does depend on how we feel toward what we have. We can be happy with little and miserable with much.

Your life does not get better by chance, it gets better by change.

The man who asks a question is a fool for a minute, the man who does not ask is a fool for life.

You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.

If a political party does not have its foundation in the determination to advance a cause that is right and that is moral, then it is not a political party; it is merely a conspiracy to seize power.

Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strengths. When you go through hardships and decide not to surrender, that is strength.

Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel to be tough.

Love does not cause suffering: what causes it is the sense of ownership, which is love’s opposite.

How sad, a heart that
does not know how to love, that
does not know what it is to be drunk with love.
If you are not in love, how can you enjoy
the blinding light of the sun,
the soft light of the moon?

Joy does not simply happen to us. We have to choose joy and keep choosing it every day. It is a choice based on the knowledge that we belong to God and have found in God our refuge and our safety and that nothing, not even death, can take God away from us.

If humility does not precede all that we do, our efforts are fruitless.

He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has.

One cannot and must not try to erase the past merely because it does not fit the present.

We must look at our life without sentimentality, exaggeration or idealism. Does what we are choosing reflect what we most deeply value?

It takes just as little time to see the positive side of life as it does the negative side.

A wounded heart will heal in time, and when it does, the memory and love of our lost ones is sealed inside to comfort us.

We cannot change anything until we accept it. Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses.

Anger that has no limit causes terror, and unseasonable kindness does away with respect. Be not so severe as to cause disgust, nor so lenient as to make people presume.

Life really does begin at forty. Up until then, you are just doing research.

Some people think God does not like to be troubled with our constant coming and asking. The way to trouble God is not to come at all.

Repetition does not transform a lie into a truth.

We are told to let our light shine, and if it does, we won’t need to tell anybody it does. Lighthouses don’t fire cannons to call attention to their shining- they just shine.

Faith itself is a horrible mechanism that stunts the growth of ideas. It also stunts the act of questioning, and it does this by pushing the idea that you have to have faith – and that nothing has to be proven.

He who has never been deceived by a lie does not know the meaning of bliss.

Success does not consist in never making mistakes but in never making the same one a second time.

Also, where does your identity come from? Your memory, of course.

It’s okay to disagree with the thoughts or opinions expressed by other people. That doesn’t give you the right to deny any sense they might make. Nor does it give you a right to accuse someone of poorly expressing their beliefs just because you don’t like what they are saying. Learn to recognize good writing when you read it, even if it means overcoming your pride and opening your mind beyond what is comfortable.

Just because you are different does not mean that you have to be rejected.

No man manages his affairs as well as a tree does.

To be sensual, I think, is to respect and rejoice in the force of life, of life itself, and to be present in all that one does, from the effort of loving to the breaking of bread.

It is a very rare man who does not victimize the helpless.