Have a heart that never hardens, and a temper that never tires, and a touch that never hurts.

I’ve never been a jealous person, and I’ve never felt built up by someone else’s failure – that’s a cheap thrill.

Look at a book. A book is the right size to be a book. They’re solar-powered. If you drop them, they keep on being a book. You can find your place in microseconds. Books are really good at being books, and no matter what happens, books will survive.

It is not my nature, when I see a people borne down by the weight of their shackles – the oppression of tyranny – to make their life more bitter by heaping upon them greater burdens; but rather would I do all in my power to raise the yoke than to add anything that would tend to crush them.

When I first went to places where people were suffering from war and persecution, I felt ashamed of my feelings of sadness. I could see more possibilities in my life.

Real courage is when you know you’re licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.

We acquire the strength we have overcome.

If a man be gracious and courteous to strangers, it shows he is a citizen of the world.

If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge? We shouldn’t marginalise people for this. They must be integrated into society.

There comes a time when people get tired of being pushed out of the glittering sunlight of life’s July and left standing amid the piercing chill of an alpine November.

Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.

We can feel joy even while having a bad day, a bad week, or even a bad year!

The good man is the friend of all living things.

I have found men to be more kind than I expected, and less just.

Our task must be to free ourselves by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty.

Our human compassion binds us the one to the other – not in pity or patronizingly, but as human beings who have learnt how to turn our common suffering into hope for the future.

The only way you gain mental toughness is to do things you’re not happy doing. If you continue doing things that you’re satisfied and make you happy, you’re not getting stronger. You’re staying where you’re at. Either you’re getting better, or you’re getting worse. You’re not staying the same.

The funny thing is people won’t let me pay for things. I’ll be in a restaurant and the manager will say, ‚Oh no, it’s on the house.‘

I felt I had to solve everyone’s problems.

History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again.

Self-sacrifice enables us to sacrifice other people without blushing.

Be generous with kindly words, especially about those who are absent.

The happiness of this life depends less on what befalls you than the way in which you take it.

I do believe that in order to be a successful negotiator that as a diplomat, you have to be able to put yourself into the other person’s shoes. Unless you can understand what is motivating them, you are never going to be able to figure out how to solve a particular problem.

‚9 to 5,‘ that little song, that little story, just won’t ever end. Just like ‚I Will Always Love You,‘ it just keeps comin‘ back, popping up its head in one way or another.

The work an unknown good man has done is like a vein of water flowing hidden underground, secretly making the ground green.

What starts the process, really, are laughs and slights and snubs when you are a kid. If your anger is deep enough and strong enough, you learn that you can change those attitudes by excellence, personal gut performance.

You have within you right now, everything you need to deal with whatever the world can throw at you.

But what we can do, as flawed as we are, is still see God in other people, and do our best to help them find their own grace. That’s what I strive to do, that’s what I pray to do every day.

I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it.

Through our own recovered innocence we discern the innocence of our neighbors.

We really have to understand the person we want to love. If our love is only a will to possess, it is not love. If we only think of ourselves, if we know only our own needs and ignore the needs of the other person, we cannot love.

I’ve heard there are troubles of more than one kind; some come from ahead, and some come from behind. But I’ve brought a big bat. I’m all ready, you see; now my troubles are going to have troubles with me!

There are those who believe Black people possess the secret of joy and that it is this that will sustain them through any spiritual or moral or physical devastation.

There are going to be things I’m not going to be great at, times when I make mistakes, 100%.

I’m not looking for sympathy at all.

As a medical doctor, I have known the face of adversity. I have seen much of death and dying, suffering and sorrow. I also remember the plight of students overwhelmed by their studies and of those striving to learn a foreign language. And I recall the fatigue and frustration felt by young parents with children in need.

I was hit by a car once on my bike, but I still rode home.

Reject your sense of injury and the injury itself disappears.

I was born with an enormous need for affection, and a terrible need to give it.

In each action we must look beyond the action at our past, present, and future state, and at others whom it affects, and see the relations of all those things. And then we shall be very cautious.

When we’re looking for compassion, we need someone who is deeply rooted, is able to bend and, most of all, embraces us for our strengths and struggles.

We hand folks over to God’s mercy, and show none ourselves.

I used to have a real problem with self-pity. Every time the devil would throw a pity party, I would attend.

I think ‚Dirty Harry‘ was probably sensitive toward the victims of violent crime.

I believe we are still so innocent. The species are still so innocent that a person who is apt to be murdered believes that the murderer, just before he puts the final wrench on his throat, will have enough compassion to give him one sweet cup of water.

I am sometimes sad when I hear the personal stories of Tibetan refugees who have been tortured or beaten. Some irritation, some anger comes. But it never lasts long. I always try to think at a deeper level, to find ways to console.

We’re going to be OK because of the American people. They have more grit, determination and courage than you can imagine.

The exercise of benevolence is joy to loving hearts: the more pain it costs, the more joy it is. Kind actions make us happy, and in such joy we find communion with the great heart of Jesus.

An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind.

I don’t have much positive to say about motor neurone disease. But it taught me not to pity myself because others were worse off, and to get on with what I could still do.

Only if you have been in the deepest valley, can you ever know how magnificent it is to be on the highest mountain.

We are ready for any unforeseen event that may or may not occur.

I don’t think of all the misery but of the beauty that still remains.

It’s not about changing people; it’s sometimes about changing a situation. How can we build an even better situation for them?

I’m doing everything that I can, working with experts, really studying the statistics to figure out a way we can make it cool or normal to be kind and loving.

A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.

Ethiopia didn’t just blow my mind; it opened my mind. Anyway, on our last day at this orphanage a man handed me his baby and said, ‚Would you take my son with you?‘ He knew, in Ireland, that his son would live, and that in Ethiopia, his son would die.

Whether a person is straight or gay, Republican, Democrat, good person, not a good person, they’re all welcome, because to me, church is a place you’re supposed to get healed and whole and loved.

Love other human beings as you would love yourself.

Do everything as in the eye of another.