When will our consciences grow so tender that we will act to prevent human misery rather than avenge it?

The truth is, no one of us can be free until everybody is free.

The highest form of worship is the worship of unselfish Christian service. The greatest form of praise is the sound of consecrated feet seeking out the lost and helpless.

I think what you’re seeing is a profound recognition on the part of the American people that gays and lesbians and transgender persons are our brothers, our sisters, our children, our cousins, our friends, our co-workers, and that they’ve got to be treated like every other American. And I think that principle will win out.

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

Any action is often better than no action, especially if you have been stuck in an unhappy situation for a long time. If it is a mistake, at least you learn something, in which case it’s no longer a mistake. If you remain stuck, you learn nothing.

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

Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to cast a stone.

We must, all of us, learn actually not to have enemies, but only confused adversaries who are ourselves in disguise.

I want you to be concerned about your next door neighbor. Do you know your next door neighbor?

The shortest answer is doing the thing.

We’ve come a long way from the days where there was state-enforced segregation. But we still have a way to go.

Every loss of life is terrible.

The love we give away is the only love we keep.

At the Carter Center we work with victims of oppression, and we give support to human rights heroes.

If I had been white with the things I did, they never would have allowed me to get out of baseball.

Today we did what we had to do. They counted on America to be passive. They counted wrong.

To be social is to be forgiving.

I don’t like to see animals in pain. That was very uncomfortable to me. I don’t like factory farming. I’m not an advocate for the meat industry.

I hope that people will finally come to realize that there is only one ‚race‘ – the human race – and that we are all members of it.

Real living is living for others.

I would go to the deeps a hundred times to cheer a downcast spirit. It is good for me to have been afflicted, that I might know how to speak a word in season to one that is weary.

People, even more than things, have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone.

A little bit of mercy makes the world less cold and more just.

What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?

We need to, you know, restore people. We need to show mercy. I mean, because as much mercy as you show people, that’s the mercy you’re going to be receiving.

A lot of people have it a lot worse than you do.

I am a strong believer that without justice, there is no peace. No lasting peace, anyway.

Some people never go crazy, What truly horrible lives they must live.

You should not believe your conscience and your feelings more than the word which the Lord who receives sinners preaches to you.

I never worry about action, but only inaction.

We need somebody who’s got the heart, the empathy, to recognize what it’s like to be a young teenage mom, the empathy to understand what it’s like to be poor or African-American or gay or disabled or old – and that’s the criterion by which I’ll be selecting my judges.

Every action needs to be prompted by a motive.

Seek first to understand, then to be understood.

What I remember as a child is that other kids didn’t care about suffering. I always did.

He incurs a fearful amount of guilt who in the least promotes the aim of the Evil One by trampling upon a tender conscience in a child.

This is a world of action, and not for moping and droning in.

Of what use is a philosopher who doesn’t hurt anybody’s feelings?

A good head and a good heart are always a formidable combination.

Friendship is but another name for an alliance with the follies and the misfortunes of others. Our own share of miseries is sufficient: why enter then as volunteers into those of another?

Talk that does not end in any kind of action is better suppressed altogether.

It’s not a slam at you when people are rude, it’s a slam at the people they’ve met before.

If you’re low-income in the United States, you have a higher chance of going to jail than you do of getting a four-year degree. And that doesn’t seem entirely fair.

Ignorant kindness may have the effect of cruelty; but to be angry with it as if it were direct cruelty would be an ignorant unkindness.

I’ve been fighting with Acorn, alongside Acorn, on issues you care about, my entire career.

I’ve been very lucky, and therefore I owe it to try and reduce the inequity in the world. And that’s kind of a religious belief. I mean, it’s at least a moral belief.

There are more love songs than anything else. If songs could make you do something we’d all love one another.

See things from the boy’s point of view.

I feel like I want to take care of everyone and I also feel this terrible guilt if I am unable to. And I have felt this way ever since all this success started.

Each generation doubtless feels called upon to reform the world. Mine knows that it will not reform it, but its task is perhaps even greater. It consists in preventing the world from destroying itself.

The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that’s the essence of inhumanity.

The funny thing is that I feel close to all my characters. Deep, deep inside them all.

How oft the sight of means to do ill deeds makes ill deeds done!

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

Justice is truth in action.

I think that that’s the wisest thing – to prevent illness before we try to cure something.

I am certain no one sets out to be cruel, but our treatment of the elderly ill seems to have no philosophy to it. As a society, we should establish whether we have a policy of life at any cost.

There are people who can do all fine and heroic things but one – keep from telling their happiness to the unhappy.

Commitment is an act, not a word.

We should seek the greatest value of our action.

If you wished to be loved, love.