In Buddhist culture, offering food to the monk symbolizes the action of goodness, and if you have no opportunity to support the practice of spirituality, then you are somehow left in the realm of darkness.

I go to assume a task more difficult than that which devolved upon Washington. Unless the great God, who assisted him, shall be with me and aid me, I must fail; but if the same omniscient mind and almighty arm that directed and protected him shall guide and support me, I shall not fail – I shall succeed.

My father wasn’t perfect. He had a temper. I took some of that. He would snap, but the older he got, he started calming down. He learned about life, but the thing that he taught my whole family was that family was the most important thing and, no matter what, if a family member needs you, you go and help them out; you get there.

Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.

The ideal death, I think, is what was the ideal Victorian death, you know, with your grandchildren around you, a bit of sobbing. And you say goodbye to your loved ones, making certain that one of them has been left behind to look after the shop.

Glory be and praise to God. I didn’t do any of this. God did. I don’t have a recipe or a blueprint. I prayed for it, and my prayers are continuing to be answered.

Being part of a community with a church at its centre and singin‘ hymns is a great thing to do.

I maintain that Truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect.

I believe God gives you the grace to do what you need to do.

All gods are homemade, and it is we who pull their strings, and so, give them the power to pull ours.

There is not enough love and goodness in the world to permit giving any of it away to imaginary beings.

Great and good are seldom the same man.

Changing is not just changing the things outside of us. First of all we need the right view that transcends all notions including of being and non-being, creator and creature, mind and spirit. That kind of insight is crucial for transformation and healing.

I look after people.

A principle is the expression of perfection, and as imperfect beings like us cannot practise perfection, we devise every moment limits of its compromise in practice.

The fewer the words, the better the prayer.

I get up every morning and say, ‚Father, give me strength today, not strength so I can lift 500 pounds, but give me strength, Lord, so when I speak, my words might motivate, might inspire somebody, Lord, when they see me, let them see you. When they hear me, Lord, let them hear you. In your holy name I pray.‘

I don’t believe in death, neither in flesh nor in spirit.

I believe everyone should have a good death. You know, with your grandchildren around you, a bit of sobbing. Because after all, tears are appropriate on a death bed. And you say goodbye to your loved ones, making certain that one of them has been left behind to look after the shop.

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.

A good objective of leadership is to help those who are doing poorly to do well and to help those who are doing well to do even better.

The revealed Word awakened me, but it was the preached Word that saved me, and I must ever attach peculiar value to the hearing of the truth, for by it I received the joy and peace in which my soul delights.

Oh, these vast, calm, measureless mountain days, days in whose light everything seems equally divine, opening a thousand windows to show us God.

For what shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his soul?

If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were precisely those who thought most of the next. It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this.

Reading and writing, like everything else, improve with practice. And, of course, if there are no young readers and writers, there will shortly be no older ones. Literacy will be dead, and democracy – which many believe goes hand in hand with it – will be dead as well.

Test a servant while in the discharge of his duty, a relative in difficulty, a friend in adversity, and a wife in misfortune.

God’s first line of defense – and offense – for every situation is prayer.

Wisdom has its root in goodness, not goodness its root in wisdom.

But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.

Only God who made us can touch us and change us and save us from ourselves.

What good are fans? You can’t eat applause for breakfast. You can’t sleep with it.

Shared joys make a friend, not shared sufferings.

I spent most of the early years of my walk with God focused on what was wrong with me. Most of us probably do that, hoping to change ourselves.

My parents were just constantly affirming me in everything that I did. Late at night, I’d wake up and hear my mother talking over my bed, saying, ‚You’re going to do great on this test. You can do anything you want.‘

I’m a religious woman. And I feel I have responsibility. I have no modesty at all. I’m even afraid of it – it’s a learned affectation and it’s just stuck on me like decals. Now I pray for humility because that comes from inside out.

God may be subtle, but he isn’t plain mean.

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

The truth is that you can only come to know God when you give up the past and the future in your mind and merge totally into the now, because God is always here now.

I have warned many times about the guaranteed dangers of betting with your heart instead of your head – big darkness, soon come – but every once in a while you get a fair chance to have it both ways, and the annual NCAA basketball Tournament is one of them.

I feel real good because it’s about representing the young world and how to uplift each other and how to push us to be greater and make sure we don’t fall or get trapped or get in trouble, you know what I mean. Stay focused, you know what I mean.

He who loves practice without theory is like the sailor who boards ship without a rudder and compass and never knows where he may cast.

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

Death is no more than passing from one room into another. But there’s a difference for me, you know. Because in that other room I shall be able to see.

You can’t hire someone to practice for you.

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

I am a simple Buddhist monk – no more, no less.

I do not believe there is a problem in this country or the world today which could not be settled if approached through the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount.

A man who is eating or lying with his wife or preparing to go to sleep in humility, thankfulness and temperance, is, by Christian standards, in an infinitely higher state than one who is listening to Bach or reading Plato in a state of pride.

True religion is real living; living with all one’s soul, with all one’s goodness and righteousness.

If you want to reach the top, don’t run over others. Likely, the only way you’ll reach the top is to be carried there by others.

I’m so tough and so bad, I can be humble and lift another guy up.

Grief can take care if itself, but to get the full value of a joy you must have somebody to divide it with.

We care for each other and care about our family, and we are both working towards the same goal.

I was raised in a religious environment, and my wife is one of the more religious people that I have ever known.

I’ve had two cancer bouts in my years on the Court, and the first one, Justice O’Connor told me, ‚Now, you do the chemotherapy on Friday because you’ll get over it during the weekend and you can be back in court on Monday.‘

Peace is one of the most precious gifts God has promised His children.

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.‘

I feel impressed to counsel those engaged in personal challenges to do right. In particular, my heart reaches out to those who feel discouraged by the magnitude of their struggle.

I believe in God, but not as one thing, not as an old man in the sky. I believe that what people call God is something in all of us. I believe that what Jesus and Mohammed and Buddha and all the rest said was right. It’s just that the translations have gone wrong.

Paris by night is a nightmare now. It is not a cliche anymore.