It says nothing against the ripeness of a spirit that it has a few worms.

A person once asked me, in a provocative manner, if I approved of homosexuality. I replied with another question: ‚Tell me: when God looks at a gay person, does he endorse the existence of this person with love, or reject and condemn this person?‘ We must always consider the person.

Imperfection clings to a person, and if they wait till they are brushed off entirely, they would spin for ever on their axis, advancing nowhere.

Despair is the conclusion of fools.

The fewer the words, the better the prayer.

Men know not the gold which lies in the mine of Christ Jesus, or surely they would dig in it night and day. They have not yet discovered the pearl of great price, or they would have sold their all to buy the field wherein it lies.

If I am not, may God put me there; and if I am, may God so keep me.

Experience never errs; it is only your judgments that err by promising themselves effects such as are not caused by your experiments.

Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet.

Truth is the beginning of every good to the gods, and of every good to man.

A gem cannot be polished without friction, nor a man perfected without trials.

The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends.

To remain a credible leader, I must always work first, hardest, and longest on changing myself. This is neither easy nor natural, but it is essential.

I never wanted to stay in one genre; I never wanted to be pigeon-holed or defined as the actor who only worked in one genre. I want to be able to work in all different genres. For me it’s fun, and that’s how I grow as an actor.

I’m considered wise, and sometimes I see myself as knowing. Most of the time, I see myself as wanting to know. And I see myself as a very interested person. I’ve never been bored in my life.

A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.

Everybody has done something that we wish we didn’t say or do and wish we could take it back.

Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school.

The older I get, the more important the eternal becomes to me personally.

Uncontrolled, the hunger and thirst after God may become an obstacle, cutting off the soul from what it desires. If a man would travel far along the mystic road, he must learn to desire God intensely but in stillness, passively and yet with all his heart and mind and strength.

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.

One is loved because one is loved. No reason is needed for loving.

The real truths of life are never entirely new to you or to anybody because there is a level deep down within you where you already know all the things, all those spiritual truths that you read or hear, and then recognize them. I say ‚recognize‘ because you’re not… it’s not new.

The truth of things is the chief nutriment of superior intellects.

I can’t believe that God put us on this earth to be ordinary.

I don’t let my religious world get too complicated.

I think that God gives you your own will and choices. I don’t believe that we’re supposed to drag ourselves through life defeated and not see God’s blessings. But you have to make the right choices and follow that still, small voice within you. Because I think that’s how God leads us.

How do you know what it’s like to be stupid if you’ve never been smart?

The only time you really live fully is from thirty to sixty. The young are slaves to dreams; the old servants of regrets. Only the middle-aged have all their five senses in the keeping of their wits.

That’s something that is almost accidental at the beginning of a career, but the more you write, the more trained you are to recognize the little signals.

I’m not afraid to die, I just don’t want to be there when it happens.

I love wisdom. And you can never be great at anything unless you love it. Not be in love with it, but love the thing, admire the thing. And it seems that if you love the thing, and you don’t just want to possess it, it will find you.

The wise use of your freedom to make your own decisions is crucial to your spiritual growth, now and for eternity.

In South Korea, they believe that when you turn 60, you’ve become a baby again and the rest of your life should be totally about joy and happiness, and people should leave you alone, and I just think that that’s the height of intelligence.

God is not upset that Gandhi was not a Christian, because God is not a Christian! All of God’s children and their different faiths help us to realize the immensity of God.

Whenever I’m confused about something, I ask God to reveal the answers to my questions, and he does.

Men always talk about the most important things to perfect strangers. In the perfect stranger we perceive man himself; the image of a God is not disguised by resemblances to an uncle or doubts of wisdom of a mustache.

You pray for rain, you gotta deal with the mud too. That’s a part of it.

Every spirit makes its house, and we can give a shrewd guess from the house to the inhabitant.

Education is the period during which you are being instructed by somebody you do not know, about something you do not want to know.

It is impossible to love and to be wise.

A mother takes twenty years to make a man of her boy, and another woman makes a fool of him in twenty minutes.

A man can take a little bourbon without getting drunk, but if you hold his mouth open and pour in a quart, he’s going to get sick on it.

The misfortune of the wise is better than the prosperity of the fool.

To say that Christ is the term and motive force of evolution, to say that he manifests himself as ‚evolver,‘ is implicitly to recognize that he becomes attainable in and through the whole process of evolution.

My great hope is to laugh as much as I cry; to get my work done and try to love somebody and have the courage to accept the love in return.

Being no bigot myself to any mode of worship, I am disposed to endulge the professors of Christianity in the church, that road to heaven which to them shall seem the most direct plainest easiest and least liable to exception.

Nothing is more terrible than activity without insight.

I read the Bible every day.

Never go to excess, but let moderation be your guide.

Apply yourself both now and in the next life. Without effort, you cannot be prosperous. Though the land be good, You cannot have an abundant crop without cultivation.

Common sense is genius dressed in its working clothes.

The career of a sage is of two kinds: He is either honored by all in the world, Like a flower waving its head, Or else he disappears into the silent forest.

Development of outlook naturally begins with a respect for God… Reverence to God and reverence for one’s neighbor and reverence for oneself as a servant of God.

Don’t be misled by those who claim God doesn’t exist, because He does.

The experience of God, or in any case the possibility of experiencing God, is innate.

Untutored courage is useless in the face of educated bullets.

You learn from a conglomeration of the incredible past – whatever experience gotten in any way whatsoever.

My home is in Heaven. I’m just traveling through this world.

Modest doubt is called the beacon of the wise.

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