A man who was completely innocent, offered himself as a sacrifice for the good of others, including his enemies, and became the ransom of the world. It was a perfect act.

My humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together.

The Holocaust was an obscene period in our nation’s history. I mean in this century’s history. But we all lived in this century. I didn’t live in this century.

Any religion that professes to be concerned about the souls of men and is not concerned about the slums that damn them, the economic conditions that strangle them and the social conditions that cripple them is a spiritually moribund religion awaiting burial.

What really raises one’s indignation against suffering is not suffering intrinsically, but the senselessness of suffering.

The Christian life is not a constant high. I have my moments of deep discouragement. I have to go to God in prayer with tears in my eyes, and say, ‚O God, forgive me,‘ or ‚Help me.‘

As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world – that is the myth of the atomic age – as in being able to remake ourselves.

Kindnesses are easily forgotten; but injuries! what worthy man does not keep those in mind?

To the press alone, chequered as it is with abuses, the world is indebted for all the triumphs which have been gained by reason and humanity over error and oppression.

All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages.

I am a Christian, and the Bible teaches me to forgive.

A man is truly ethical only when he obeys the compulsion to help all life which he is able to assist, and shrinks from injuring anything that lives.

The purpose of human life is to serve, and to show compassion and the will to help others.

Love means to love that which is unlovable; or it is no virtue at all.

It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who had ever been alive.

Nonviolence means avoiding not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit. You not only refuse to shoot a man, but you refuse to hate him.

One who is injured ought not to return the injury, for on no account can it be right to do an injustice; and it is not right to return an injury, or to do evil to any man, however much we have suffered from him.

The worst government is often the most moral. One composed of cynics is often very tolerant and humane. But when fanatics are on top there is no limit to oppression.

If we love our country, we should also love our countrymen.

I shall allow no man to belittle my soul by making me hate him.

Man becomes great exactly in the degree in which he works for the welfare of his fellow-men.

Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind.

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

Today we affirm a new commitment to live out our nation’s promise through civility, courage, compassion and character.

Giving back involves a certain amount of giving up.

‚Suffering should not make us bitter people,‘ my mother once said, ‚it should make us better comforters.‘ Young people need to hear this from those who have walked before them, because someday they’ll be walking those same steps, but there may not be anyone following behind.

I refuse to allow any man-made differences to separate me from any other human beings.

One of the greatest lessons of my own life was learning to turn the inner rampage of hatred and anger toward my own father for his reprehensible behavior and abandonment of his family into an inner reaction more closely aligned with God and God-realized love.

Older men declare war. But it is the youth that must fight and die.

That’s one of the biggest things. Never being home, always traveling, having different interests and focusing on different things, just the time aspect of going back home and seeing them, you don’t have that at all. It was a big sacrifice but, at the end of the day, it was worth it.

I think technology really increased human ability. But technology cannot produce compassion.

Without words, without writing and without books there would be no history, there could be no concept of humanity.

The high destiny of the individual is to serve rather than to rule.

Wealthy men can’t live in an island that is encircled by poverty. We all breathe the same air. We must give a chance to everyone, at least a basic chance.

An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.

All art really does is keep you focused on questions of humanity, and it really is about how do we get on with our maker.

There are techniques of Buddhism, such as meditation, that anyone can adopt. And, of course, there are Christian monks and nuns who already use Buddhist methods in order to develop their devotion, compassion, and ability to forgive.

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.

You pity the fool because you don’t want to beat up a fool! You know, pity is between sorry and mercy. See, if you pity him, you know, you won’t have to beat him up. So that’s why I say fools, you gotta give another chance because they don’t know no better. That’s why I pity them!

A prisoner of war is a man who tries to kill you and fails, and then asks you not to kill him.

Our God is a forgiving God.

Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted.

I hate to see anybody sink. I hate to see anybody lose their dream, lose their home, something like that.

If there are dreams about a beautiful South Africa, there are also roads that lead to their goal. Two of these roads could be named Goodness and Forgiveness.

If there was an observer on Mars, they would probably be amazed that we have survived this long.

God made and governs the world invisibly, and has commanded us to love and worship him and no other God; to honor our parents and masters, and love our neighbours as ourselves; and to be temperate, just, and peaceable, and to be merciful even to brute beasts.

While the rest of the world has been improving technology, Ghana has been improving the quality of man’s humanity to man.

We do not judge the people we love.

I just really believe people have to get hungry. I think maybe what we need to do, instead of trying to stuff our beliefs down people’s throats, is just pray for them to really be hungry and to see their neediness.

Stay humble and be concerned for the less fortunate.

It’s a tragedy, in a way, that Americans are brought up to think that they cannot feel for other people and other beings just because they are different. They think they’re different. It’s very limiting.

The soldier above all others prays for peace, for it is the soldier who must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war.

Jesus never mistreated anyone just because they mistreated Him. He confronted them in a spirit of gentleness and then continued to love them.

Let us all be brave enough to die the death of a martyr, but let no one lust for martyrdom.

War may sometimes be a necessary evil. But no matter how necessary, it is always an evil, never a good. We will not learn how to live together in peace by killing each other’s children.

Humanity is still advancing; and it will probably continue to advance for hundreds of thousands of years more, always on condition that we know how to keep the same line of advance as our ancestors towards ever greater consciousness and complexity.

If we want to fight people in the world, we should fight them with pillows – pillows stuffed with food, medicine, music… That would be so much cheaper than bombs.

One life is all we have and we live it as we believe in living it. But to sacrifice what you are and to live without belief, that is a fate more terrible than dying.

I had to make a choice at one point in my life, of missing films or missing my children. It was a very easy decision to make because I missed my children so very much.

Clinicians, academicians, and politicians are often put to a test of faith. In pursuit of their goals, will their religion show or will it be hidden? Are they tied back to God or to man?

Forgive, O Lord, my little jokes on Thee, and I’ll forgive Thy great big joke on me.