God always takes the simplest way.

I truly believe the things Notre Dame stands for.

When granted many years of life, growing old in age is natural, but growing old with grace is a choice. Growing older with grace is possible for all who will set their hearts and minds on the Giver of grace, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Questioning my spiritual life has always been germane to what I was writing. Always. It’s because I’m not quite an atheist and it worries me. There’s that little bit that holds on: ‚Well, I’m almost an atheist. Give me a couple of months.‘

Everyone has noticed how hard it is to turn our thoughts to God when everything is going well with us… While what we call ‚our own life‘ remains agreeable, we will not surrender it to Him. What, then, can God do in our interests but make ‚our own life‘ less agreeable to us, and take away the plausible sources of false happiness?

A better world shall emerge based on faith and understanding.

I believe that some of us who were kept by God a long while before we found Him love Him better perhaps than we should have done if we had received Him directly, and we can preach better to others – we can speak more of His loving-kindness and tender mercy.

Religious organizations exist to foster the interests of persons subscribing to the same religious faith. Not so of for-profit corporations. Workers who sustain the operations of those corporations commonly are not drawn from one religious community.

Trust is central to an economy that works.

God cannot be realized through the intellect. Intellect can lead one to a certain extent and no further. It is a matter of faith and experience derived from that faith.

The wind can be quite extreme in England. We are not familiar with that in Germany, and you have to keep things simple.

We ought to fly away from earth to heaven as quickly as we can; and to fly away is to become like God, as far as this is possible; and to become like him is to become holy, just, and wise.

Remember, we are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.

The press is the hired agent of a monied system, and set up for no other purpose than to tell lies where their interests are involved. One can trust nobody and nothing.

I fear that there are too many priesthood bearers who have done little or nothing to develop their ability to access the powers of Heaven.

I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

Gold was a gift to Jesus. If it’s good enough for Jesus, it’s good enough for me!

As the father of eight children, I’m quite convinced that each individual arrives here with their own unique personality. We are intended here from an invisible held of infinite potentiality. That which has no form, has no boundaries – it’s the I that’s in the ever-changing body.

Yes, across Europe, this wall will fall. For it cannot withstand faith; it cannot withstand truth. The wall cannot withstand freedom.

Faith means belief in something concerning which doubt is theoretically possible.

Reputation is the cornerstone of power. Through reputation alone you can intimidate and win; once it slips, however, you are vulnerable, and will be attacked on all sides. Make your reputation unassailable.

Age appears to be best in four things; old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read.

Let us raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair; the rest is in the hands of God.

My aim is to put down on paper what I see and what I feel in the best and simplest way.

Forgiveness is not a feeling – it’s a decision we make because we want to do what’s right before God. It’s a quality decision that won’t be easy and it may take time to get through the process, depending on the severity of the offense.

The major religions, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, they deny somehow that God has a feminine face. However, if you go to the holy texts, you see there is this feminine presence.

Many Tibetans sacrifice their lives.

I was inspired to spend an entire year – my 65th year – reading, researching, and meditating on Lao-tzu’s messages, practicing them and ultimately writing down these insights as I felt Lao-tzu wanted us to know them.

I’ve seen my friends take someone back after they’ve cheated because they fit perfectly.

The vanity of being known to be trusted with a secret is generally one of the chief motives to disclose it.

You may make some mistakes – but that doesn’t make you a sinner. You’ve got the very nature of God on the inside of you.

I am prepared to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter.

It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.

If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.

Fighting for one’s freedom, struggling towards being free, is like struggling to be a poet or a good Christian or a good Jew or a good Muslim or good Zen Buddhist. You work all day long and achieve some kind of level of success by nightfall, go to sleep and wake up the next morning with the job still to be done. So you start all over again.

You should not believe your conscience and your feelings more than the word which the Lord who receives sinners preaches to you.

I spent a lot of years trying to outrun or outsmart vulnerability by making things certain and definite, black and white, good and bad. My inability to lean into the discomfort of vulnerability limited the fullness of those important experiences that are wrought with uncertainty: Love, belonging, trust, joy, and creativity to name a few.

Sure I believe in God and the Devil, but they don’t have to have pitchforks and a long white beard.

If some people have the belief or view that the Dalai Lama has some miracle power, that’s totally nonsense.

To be Catholic is the only way of being fully and utterly Christian.

To gather with God’s people in united adoration of the Father is as necessary to the Christian life as prayer.

Faith is about trusting God when you have unanswered questions.

My faith was tested like Job. That’s the message I try to tell other people: just because you believe in God, serve God, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, people gotta realize, it don’t mean things not gonna happen to you.

When I get logical, and I don’t trust my instincts – that’s when I get in trouble.

God is patient with us to become the God’s children he wants us to be but you really can see him weeping.

The most distressing thing that can happen to a prophet is to be proved wrong. The next most distressing thing is to be proved right.

The only thing that matters is submitting to the will of God.

Truly, there is a Christian note which makes the whole World vibrate, like an immense gong, in the divine Christ. This note is unique and universal, and in it alone consists the Gospel.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made straight and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.

Complaining is dangerous business. It can damage or even destroy your relationship with God, your relationships with other people, and even with your relationship with yourself.

I don’t set out to write about spirituality; I am free to do something different every time.

All wars signify the failure of conflict resolution mechanisms, and they need post-war rebuilding of faith, trust and confidence.

My understanding of the Scriptures has been made simple by the person of Christ.

I always try to put a seed of hope into people’s hearts. I’m not there to teach them doctrine necessarily, but to let them know that God is a good God, and has a plan for their lives. Hopefully, that will restore their faith, or draw them into faith.

Every time I make American film I just trust American directors and American writers.

By having a reverence for life, we enter into a spiritual relation with the world By practicing reverence for life we become good, deep, and alive.

God’s mercy and grace give me hope – for myself, and for our world.

It’s wonderful to climb the liquid mountains of the sky. Behind me and before me is God and I have no fears.

God’s love is too great to be confined to any one side of a conflict or to any one religion.

Happy the man whose wish and care a few paternal acres bound, content to breathe his native air in his own ground.

No man ever quite believes in any other man. One may believe in an idea absolutely, but not in a man.