We often want one thing and pray for another, not telling the truth even to the gods.

What I think is fair to say is that, coming out of the Republican camp, there have been efforts to suggest that perhaps I’m not who I say I am when it comes to my faith – something which I find deeply offensive, and that has been going on for a pretty long time.

One must know oneself. If this does not serve to discover truth, it at least serves as a rule of life and there is nothing better.

I am grateful to be a woman. I must have done something great in another life.

A belief in hell and the knowledge that every ambition is doomed to frustration at the hands of a skeleton have never prevented the majority of human beings from behaving as though death were no more than an unfounded rumor.

The self is hateful.

We are not the sum of our possessions.

I don’t see the point of doing an interview unless you’re going to share the things you learn in life and the mistakes you make. So to admit that I’m extremely human and have done some dark things I don’t think makes me unusual or unusually dark. I think it actually is the right thing to do, and I’d like to think it’s the nice thing to do.

If any philosopher had been asked for a definition of infinity, he might have produced some unintelligible rigmarole, but he would certainly not have been able to give a definition that had any meaning at all.

What is the Tao Te Ching? Five hundred years before the birth of Jesus, a God-realized being named Lao-tzu in ancient China dictated 81 verses which are regarded by many as the ultimate commentary on the nature of existence.

All the religions of the world, while they may differ in other respects, unitedly proclaim that nothing lives in this world but Truth.

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

I haven’t changed at all. I’m the same as when I was 11.

I don’t believe in ‚thinking‘ old. Although I’ve transitioned through many bodies – a baby, toddler, child, teen, young adult, mid-life and older adult – my spirit is unchanged. I support my body with exercise, my mind with reading and writing, and my spirit with the knowing that I am part of the Divine source of all life.

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.

I thank God I’m myself and for the life I’m given to live and for friends and lovers and beloveds, and I thank God for knowing that all those people have already paid for me.

Truth is so rare that it is delightful to tell it.

I want to be a man who is truthful and who won’t let pride get in the way of my ripping myself open to my partner and saying, ‚Here I am. This is me.‘ I feel there’s something powerful when a man reaches a point in his life when he can be completely vulnerable.

Man takes his law from the Earth; the Earth takes its law from Heaven; Heaven takes its law from the Tao. The law of the Tao is its being what it is.

It is too difficult to think nobly when one thinks only of earning a living.

It’s not catastrophes, murders, deaths, diseases, that age and kill us; it’s the way people look and laugh, and run up the steps of omnibuses.

Words are only painted fire; a look is the fire itself.

Sports are basically our way of feeling sorry for ourselves. Most men can’t become athletes. We’re watching guys who actually made it. We see them dunking and making touchdowns. Then we think about ourselves when we were younger.

Well, the future for me is already a thing of the past.

The way of fortune is like the milkyway in the sky; which is a number of small stars, not seen asunder, but giving light together: so it is a number of little and scarce discerned virtues, or rather faculties and customs, that make men fortunate.

A saint serves others, knowing that the more one serves, the greater the opportunity for the Spirit to sanctify and purify.

Feels good to try, but playing a father, I’m getting a little older. I see now that I’m taking it more serious and I do want that lifestyle.

I remember my mother’s prayers and they have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life.

Satan wants us to constantly focus on everything that is wrong with us and look at how far we still have to go. But God desires for us to rejoice in how far we have already come.

Freedom in general may be defined as the absence of obstacles to the realization of desires.

The soul is your innermost being. The presence that you are beyond form. The consciousness that you are beyond form, that is the soul. That is who you are in essence.

The reason I talk to myself is that I’m the only one whose answers I accept.

‚You are no saint,‘ says the devil. Well, if I am not, I am a sinner, and Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners. Sink or swim, I go to Him; other hope, I have none.

No one should fear to undertake any task in the name of our Saviour, if it is just and if the intention is purely for His holy service.

We were old sinners – but when we came to Christ we are not sinners anymore.

Nothing is void of God, his work is everywhere his full of himself.

In my work and in myself I reflect black people, women and men, as I reflect others. One day even the most self-protective ones will look into the mirror I provide and not be afraid.

A noble man compares and estimates himself by an idea which is higher than himself; and a mean man, by one lower than himself. The one produces aspiration; the other ambition, which is the way in which a vulgar man aspires.

In order to understand the world, one has to turn away from it on occasion.

Consistency is contrary to nature, contrary to life. The only completely consistent people are dead.

Intense feeling too often obscures the truth.

In this quest to seek and find God in all things, there is still an area of uncertainty. There must be. If a person says that he met God with total certainty and is not touched by a margin of uncertainty, then this is not good.

In faith there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadows to blind those who don’t.

We grow older, but we do not change. We become more sophisticated, but at bottom we continue to resemble our young selves, eager to listen to the next story and the next, and the next.

It is better that some should be unhappy rather than that none should be happy, which would be the case in a general state of equality.

If only God would give me some clear sign! Like making a large deposit in my name at a Swiss bank.

Reason is the enemy of faith.

The ‚soul‘ is one of the words you can use to talk about your innermost being, the essence of who you are.

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

I sometimes think that God in creating man somewhat overestimated his ability.

I just really believe people have to get hungry. I think maybe what we need to do, instead of trying to stuff our beliefs down people’s throats, is just pray for them to really be hungry and to see their neediness.

Open-minded people tend to be interested in Buddhism because Buddha urged people to investigate things – he didn’t just command them to believe.

Conventional people are roused to fury by departure from convention, largely because they regard such departure as a criticism of themselves.

I deal with more practical issues of the Bible.

Know that as a Christian, your destiny is to be Christlike in all of your ways.

God’s Spirit moves through us and the world at a pace that can never be constricted by any one religious paradigm.

True glory takes root, and even spreads; all false pretences, like flowers, fall to the ground; nor can any counterfeit last long.

If God dropped acid, would he see people?

The act of dying is one of the acts of life.

We must show our Christian colors if we are to be true to Jesus Christ.

I’m giving all that I have in this life. I’m opening up my notebook, and I’m saying everything in there out loud.