If anything, we should feel sorry for the people who want us to feel bad about ourselves, because they are the ones struggling for approval. In middle school, bullies tortured other kids because they thought it would make people like them more.

When we are well, we all have good advice for those who are ill.

Let us touch the dying, the poor, the lonely and the unwanted according to the graces we have received and let us not be ashamed or slow to do the humble work.

The infinitely little have a pride infinitely great.

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.

I often advocate that we look at many sides of an issue, walk in someone else’s shoes, and identify and reject false choices.

I’m not happy all the time, and I wouldn’t want to be because that would make me a shallow person. But I do try to find the good in everybody.

The problem with having a sense of humor is often that people you use it on aren’t in a very good mood.

I can’t read the newspaper without crying. I’m easily affected by horrible events, you see.

It’s nice to be included in people’s fantasies but you also like to be accepted for your own sake.

Talk to a man about himself and he will listen for hours.

Encouragement to others is something everyone can give. Somebody needs what you have to give. It may not be your money; it may be your time. It may be your listening ear. It may be your arms to encourage. It may be your smile to uplift. Who knows?

Real living is living for others.

It’s hard for me to grasp the concept of somebody being nervous when I’m talking to them.

Pity may represent little more than the impersonal concern which prompts the mailing of a check, but true sympathy is the personal concern which demands the giving of one’s soul.

If you want to see the true measure of a man, watch how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.

I’m over being a pop star. I don’t wanna be a hot girl. I wanna be iconic. And I feel like I’ve accomplished a lot. I feel like I’m highly respected, which is more important than any award or any amount of records. And I feel like there comes a point when being a pop star is not enough.

I have often wondered how it is that every man loves himself more than all the rest of men, but yet sets less value on his own opinions of himself than on the opinions of others.

We awaken in others the same attitude of mind we hold toward them.

One must be poor to know the luxury of giving!

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.

You’re not better than anybody else, but you’re not less than anybody else. You’re a child of the Most High God.

I respect myself and insist upon it from everybody. And because I do it, I then respect everybody, too.

Think occasionally of the suffering of which you spare yourself the sight.

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

I think that most of us would prefer to be popular than unpopular.

I used to let other people’s struggles affect my happiness. If they weren’t happy, there was no way I was going to be happy. The opposite was also true: If I wasn’t happy, I didn’t want anyone around me to be happy.

A tear dries quickly when it is shed for troubles of others.

If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same.

So when you are listening to somebody, completely, attentively, then you are listening not only to the words, but also to the feeling of what is being conveyed, to the whole of it, not part of it.

Do not do unto others as you expect they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same.

Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to cast a stone.

If I’m in a political argument, I think I can, with reasonable accuracy and without boasting, put the other person’s side of the case at least as well as they could. One has to be able to say that in any well-conducted argument.

Tears shed for self are tears of weakness, but tears shed for others are a sign of strength.

What humility does for one is it reminds us that there are people before me. I have already been paid for. And what I need to do is prepare myself so that I can pay for someone else who has yet to come but who may be here and needs me.

The thing to do, it seems to me, is to prepare yourself so you can be a rainbow in somebody else’s cloud. Somebody who may not look like you. May not call God the same name you call God – if they call God at all. I may not dance your dances or speak your language. But be a blessing to somebody. That’s what I think.

I’m selfish, impatient, and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I’m out of control, and at times hard to handle. But if you can’t handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don’t deserve me at my best.

It is always a strain when people are being killed. I don’t think anybody has held this job who hasn’t felt personally responsible for those being killed.

We need to, you know, restore people. We need to show mercy. I mean, because as much mercy as you show people, that’s the mercy you’re going to be receiving.

Love other human beings as you would love yourself.

You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.

You know, one race will not be a survivor if the other one dies, and that’s something that we should think about.

I have a strong feeling that I shall be glad when I am dead and done for – scrapped at last to make room for somebody better, cleverer, more perfect than myself.

The way people look at me these days – that’s the same way I looked at President Obama before I met him. We tend to forget that people who’ve attained a certain position are human.

We have an obligation to help people that cannot help themselves. The mentally retarded, the physically retarded, et cetera.

Respect the burden.

If your mom cries a lot, you probably cry a lot. It’s what you learn.

Still and all, why bother? Here’s my answer. Many people need desperately to receive this message: I feel and think much as you do, care about many of the things you care about, although most people do not care about them. You are not alone.

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

He has a right to criticize, who has a heart to help.

With fame, you know, you can read about yourself, somebody else’s ideas about you, but what’s important is how you feel about yourself – for survival and living day to day with what comes up.

What do we live for, if not to make life less difficult for each other?

He who is cruel to animals becomes hard also in his dealings with men. We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals.

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.

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.

Hell is yourself and the only redemption is when a person puts himself aside to feel deeply for another person.

To use the same words is not a sufficient guarantee of understanding; one must use the same words for the same genus of inward experience; ultimately one must have one’s experiences in common.

If someone decides they’re not going to be happy, it’s not your problem. You don’t have to spend your time and energy trying to cheer up someone who has already decided to stay in a bad mood. Believe it or not, you can actually hurt people by playing into their self-pity.

It is the nature of the artist to mind excessively what is said about him. Literature is strewn with the wreckage of men who have minded beyond reason the opinions of others.

Why is it that we rejoice at a birth and grieve at a funeral? It is because we are not the person involved.

Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live.