We’re a blip in the existence of the universe, and we’re constantly trying to pull each other down. Not doing things to help each other.

Hate and force cannot be in just a part of the world without having an effect on the rest of it.

There are some cases in which the sense of injury breeds not the will to inflict injuries and climb over them as a ladder, but a hatred of all injury.

I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality… I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.

What air is to the body, to feel understood is to the heart.

When the human race neglects its weaker members, when the family neglects its weakest one – it’s the first blow in a suicidal movement. I see the neglect in cities around the country, in poor white children in West Virginia and Virginia and Kentucky – in the big cities, too, for that matter.

I don’t take pictures when I’m with my kids, for the sake of my kids. It’s important when you’re as busy as I am that you give your kids your time when you’re with them, and nothing compromises that. I’ve been lucky enough to have fans that understand that.

The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.

In order to have friends, you must first be one.

The progress of India is the destiny of one-sixth of humanity. And it will also mean a world more confident of its prosperity and more secure about its future.

One friend in a lifetime is much, two are many, three are hardly possible. Friendship needs a certain parallelism of life, a community of thought, a rivalry of aim.

We inhabit a universe that is characterized by diversity.

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.

If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.

Meaning and reality were not hidden somewhere behind things, they were in them, in all of them.

Neither a man nor a crowd nor a nation can be trusted to act humanely or to think sanely under the influence of a great fear.

The proper study of Mankind is Man.

The first question which the priest and the Levite asked was: ‚If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?‘ But… the good Samaritan reversed the question: ‚If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?‘

We can come to look upon the deaths of our enemies with as much regret as we feel for those of our friends, namely, when we miss their existence as witnesses to our success.

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.

My religion encompasses all religions. I believe in God, I believe in the universe. I believe you are god, I believe I am god; I believe the earth is god and the universe is god. We’re all god.

I try to give to the poor people for love what the rich could get for money. No, I wouldn’t touch a leper for a thousand pounds; yet I willingly cure him for the love of God.

All my adult life people have been helping me.

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

The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao; the name that can be named is not the eternal name. The Nameless is the origin of Heaven and Earth; the Named is the mother of all things.

Synergy is better than my way or your way. It’s our way.

That deep emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God.

One likes people much better when they’re battered down by a prodigious siege of misfortune than when they triumph.

I like Mr. Gorbachev, we can do business together.

Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darknesses of other people.

Too many have dispensed with generosity in order to practice charity.

I have to be in tune. All the time. I have to be in tune with my husband, where he is, how he’s feeling. I have to be in tune with where my family is.

I claim that human mind or human society is not divided into watertight compartments called social, political and religious. All act and react upon one another.

There is but one law for all, namely that law which governs all law, the law of our Creator, the law of humanity, justice, equity – the law of nature and of nations.

In a relationship each person should support the other; they should lift each other up.

I’ve got incredible support from my wife and family and people around me. I’ve got great people around me who handle anything on the outside, business-wise, who help free me up to create in my job.

You will find men who want to be carried on the shoulders of others, who think that the world owes them a living. They don’t seem to see that we must all lift together and pull together.

For me life is continuously being hungry. The meaning of life is not simply to exist, to survive, but to move ahead, to go up, to achieve, to conquer.

Certainly I’ll never be able to put myself in the situation that people growing up in the less developed countries are in. I’ve gotten a bit of a sense of it by being out there and meeting people and talking with them.

For the sake of peace and justice, let us move toward a world in which all people are at last free to determine their own destiny.

Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love.

I believe in singing to such an extent that, if I were asked to redesign the British educational system, I would start by insisting that group singing becomes a central part of the daily routine. I believe it builds character and, more than anything else, encourages a taste for cooperation with others.

The only thing that will redeem mankind is cooperation.

An association of men who will not quarrel with one another is a thing which has never yet existed, from the greatest confederacy of nations down to a town meeting or a vestry.

Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.

I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet, strange, I am ungrateful to those teachers.

We’re one of the only animals in the world that don’t really think of ourselves as animals, but we are animals, and we must respect our fellow animals.

Some scientists claim that hydrogen, because it is so plentiful, is the basic building block of the universe. I dispute that. I say there is more stupidity than hydrogen, and that is the basic building block of the universe.

Kind words do not cost much. Yet they accomplish much.

Contention existed before the earth was formed.

Self-government does not and should not imply the use of political agencies alone. Progress is born of cooperation in the community – not from governmental restraints.

This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness.

A man will speedily sit down and sympathize with a friend’s griefs, but if he sees him honored and esteemed, he is apt to regard him as a rival and does not so readily rejoice with him. This ought not to be; without effort, we ought to be happy in our brother’s happiness.

It’s hard knowing who to trust with your personal life. When you cry in your room at night, you don’t always know who to call. So I am very close to my family.

It seems that when you have cancer you are a brave battler against the disease, but when you have Alzheimer’s you are an old fart. That’s how people see you. It makes you feel quite alone.

Life is relationship, living is relationship. We cannot live if you and I have built a wall around ourselves and just peep over that wall occasionally. Unconsciously, deeply, under the wall, we are related.

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

If the stars should appear but one night every thousand years how man would marvel and stare.

Until he extends his circle of compassion to include all living things, man will not himself find peace.

And know that I am with you always; yes, to the end of time.