To all those who have suffered as a consequence of our troubled past I extend my sincere thoughts and deep sympathy. With the benefit of historical hindsight we can all see things which we would wish had been done differently or not at all.

The Medici created and destroyed me.

It is the superfluous things for which men sweat, – superfluous things that wear our togas theadbare, that force us to grow old in camp, that dash us upon foreign shores.

So long as men worship the Caesars and Napoleons, Caesars and Napoleons will duly arise and make them miserable.

Errors are not in the art but in the artificers.

If you’re in trouble, or hurt or need – go to the poor people. They’re the only ones that’ll help – the only ones.

Charity bestowed upon those who are worthy of it is like good seed sown on a good soil that yields an abundance of fruits. But alms given to those who are yet under the tyrannical yoke of the passions are like seed deposited in a bad soil. The passions of the receiver of the alms choke, as it were, the growth of merits.

Have you ever thought how humiliating and distressing it was to be placed upon a sphere? For friendship it is a boon never to be able to be further apart than the antipodes. But suppose that you are leaving together to go on and on; it is impossible. To go beyond a certain point is to return to where you began.

My one big regret is that I didn’t play on for ten more years.

I think it matters whether someone has a good heart.

The only way to have a friend is to be one.

I realized quickly what Mandela and Tambo meant to ordinary Africans. It was a place where they could come and find a sympathetic ear and a competent ally, a place where they would not be either turned away or cheated, a place where they might actually feel proud to be represented by men of their own skin color.

The greatest destroyer of peace is abortion because if a mother can kill her own child, what is left for me to kill you and you to kill me? There is nothing between.

When the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said ‚Let us pray.‘ We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land.

However many holy words you read, however many you speak, what good will they do you if you do not act on upon them?

If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.

How great is the mystery of the first cells which were one day animated by the breath of our souls! How impossible to decipher the welding of successive influences in which we are forever incorporated! In each one of us, through matter, the whole history of the world is in part reflected.

That sort of half sigh, which, accompanied by two or three slight nods of the head, is pity’s small change in general society.

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

Freedom from effort in the present merely means that there has been effort stored up in the past.

History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again.

To be social is to be forgiving.

Our task must be to free ourselves by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty.

I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice.

When the people become involved in their government, government becomes more accountable, and our society is stronger, more compassionate, and better prepared for the challenges of the future.

This is a wonderful planet, and it is being completely destroyed by people who have too much money and power and no empathy.

As you get older, the questions come down to about two or three. How long? And what do I do with the time I’ve got left?

It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.

Sometimes I catch myself stooping, and whenever I am like that, I am sure something is not quite right.

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.

I do believe that in order to be a successful negotiator that as a diplomat, you have to be able to put yourself into the other person’s shoes. Unless you can understand what is motivating them, you are never going to be able to figure out how to solve a particular problem.

We can learn to see each other and see ourselves in each other and recognize that human beings are more alike than we are unalike.

No boxer in the history of boxing has had Parkinson’s. There’s no injury in my brain that suggests that the illness came from boxing.

In poverty and other misfortunes of life, true friends are a sure refuge. The young they keep out of mischief; to the old they are a comfort and aid in their weakness, and those in the prime of life they incite to noble deeds.

Traveling around the world and preaching for over 70 years did not give much time for reflection.

Time is something that interests me a whole lot – past and present, and how the past appears as people change.

Let’s teach kids, at the kindergarten level, what the contributions of people of color were to building the United States of America.

On October 15, 1965, an estimated 70,000 people took part in large-scale anti-war demonstrations.

America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between.

If thy brother wrongs thee, remember not so much his wrong-doing, but more than ever that he is thy brother.

At United, there are great traditions, which you can’t buy in one or two years. They are created by victories. You need to prove again and again that you are better than the others. Manchester United have always done this, and are still doing it, so they are the best.

I have a collective sense of suffering.

Maybe Christmas, the Grinch thought, doesn’t come from a store.

I feel like if you’re a really good human being, you can try to find something beautiful in every single person, no matter what.

In the late 1960s, the masses were supposed to be passive, not entering into the public arena and having their voices heard.

Don’t judge other people. For example, if you want God’s anointing to be on you for parenting, you need to be careful not to criticize other parents.

I never sympathise with the accused unless there’s a chance the accused is not guilty, but I certainly don’t ever sympathise with the criminal.

Auschwitz stands as a tragic reminder of the terrible potential man has for violence and inhumanity.

Do something for somebody everyday for which you do not get paid.

Read no history: nothing but biography, for that is life without theory.

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.

Anger is like those ruins which smash themselves on what they fall.

Contention existed before the earth was formed.

I can not believe that war is the best solution. No one won the last war, and no one will win the next war.

We can continue to learn generation after generation and now is time to begin to learn how to love in a non-discriminatory way because we are intelligent enough, but we are not loving enough as a species.

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.

Youth cannot know how age thinks and feels. But old men are guilty if they forget what it was to be young.

Life becomes harder for us when we live for others, but it also becomes richer and happier.

To the people I forgot, you weren’t on my mind for some reason and you probably don’t deserve any thanks anyway.

Men make history and not the other way around. In periods where there is no leadership, society stands still. Progress occurs when courageous, skillful leaders seize the opportunity to change things for the better.

Where the Mind is biggest, the Heart, the Senses, Magnanimity, Charity, Tolerance, Kindliness, and the rest of them scarcely have room to breathe.