When you call yourself an Indian or a Muslim or a Christian or a European or anything else, you are being violent. Do you see why it is violent? Because you are separating yourself from the rest of mankind. When you separate yourself by belief, by nationality, by tradition, it breeds violence.

Nothing is more difficult, and therefore more precious, than to be able to decide.

I discovered me in the library. I went to find me in the library.

I put my flaws on front street. So the world accepted my flaws, so I don’t have any flaws.

O wretched man, wretched not just because of what you are, but also because you do not know how wretched you are!

But for my faith in God, I should have been a raving maniac.

I just want to do God’s will. And he’s allowed me to go to the mountain. And I’ve looked over, and I’ve seen the promised land! I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the promised land.

Hide our ignorance as we will, an evening of wine soon reveals it.

In order to speak about all and to all, one has to speak of what all know and of the reality common to us all. The sea, rains, necessity, desire, the struggle against death… these are things that unite us all.

In the egoic state, your sense of self, your identity, is derived from your thinking mind – in other words, what your mind tells you about yourself: the storyline of you, the memories, the expectations, all the thoughts that go through your head continuously and the emotions that reflect those thoughts. All those things make up your sense of self.

Many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.

Understand this law and you will then know, beyond room for the slightest doubt, that you are constantly punishing yourself for every wrong you commit and rewarding yourself for every act of constructive conduct in which you indulge.

I’m concerned that my technical skills have advanced to the point where I can get closer to what I’m aiming for, which is not such a good thing.

War is the domain of physical exertion and suffering.

Friendship, like the immortality of the soul, is too good to be believed.

We welcome the scrutiny of the world – because what you see in America is a country that has steadily worked to address our problems and make our union more perfect.

I don’t stand for the black man’s side, I don‘ t stand for the white man’s side. I stand for God’s side.

I hold that a writer who does not passionately believe in the perfectibility of man has no dedication nor any membership in literature.

I had one incident where my daughter said that a girl asked if she was a brown person. I said, ‚We’re black. You have black people, white people, Chinese people, Hispanic people; we’re all brought up differently.‘

For a long time, I thought I was ugly and disfigured. This made me shy and timid, and I often reacted to insults that were not intended.

The knowledge that we have brother scouts working in the same uniform, to the same ends, in the same way, in all corners of the Empire, cannot but make scouts proud of their brotherhood, and cannot fail to bring them into closer sympathy.

I’ve always been really, really aware of my insecurities – really, really aware. I never developed that thick skin that keeps you from letting things get to you.

I do all the evil I can before I learn to shun it? Is it not enough to know the evil to shun it? If not, we should be sincere enough to admit that we love evil too well to give it up.

To know, is to know that you know nothing. That is the meaning of true knowledge.

The greatest of faults, I should say, is to be conscious of none.

In order to heal others, we first need to heal ourselves. And to heal ourselves, we need to know how to deal with ourselves.

I wear the national dress because it is the most natural and the most becoming for an Indian.

I have never believed much in luck, and my sense of humor has tended to walk on the dark side.

At 50, I began to know who I was. It was like waking up to myself.

The people respect and believe in men who fulfill their duty.

I like working. That’s when I’m feeling my best. And the people around me know that. My wife knows that.

We continue to shape our personality all our life. If we knew ourselves perfectly, we should die.

To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else – means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.

I certainly respect the belief of the Hobby Lobby owners. On the other hand, they have no constitutional right to foist that belief on the hundreds and hundreds of women who work for them who don’t share that belief.

For me to talk with Obama and the conversation I had with him, I was letting him know that me and my fans have a special connection, and it’s love, and I believe that love is the answer.

It is far harder to kill a phantom than a reality.

Tea to the English is really a picnic indoors.

I’m just hoping that people understand that Islam is peace and not violence.

What lies behind you and what lies in front of you, pales in comparison to what lies inside of you.

All who call on God in true faith, earnestly from the heart, will certainly be heard, and will receive what they have asked and desired.

I feel you’re in charge of your own situation.

I briefly did therapy, but after a while, I realised it is just like a farmer complaining about the weather. You can’t fix the weather – you just have to get on with it.

We teach that God’s love for His children is infinite.

A man can no more diminish God’s glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word, ‚darkness‘ on the walls of his cell.

I think my worst problem is actually living in the moment and understanding everything that’s going on. I feel like I’m in my own bubble.

Tradition is the illusion of permanence.

Faith certainly tells us what the senses do not, but not the contrary of what they see; it is above, not against them.

It is my own firm belief that the strength of the soul grows in proportion as you subdue the flesh.

Think occasionally of the suffering of which you spare yourself the sight.

I do not believe in a fate that falls on men however they act; but I do believe in a fate that falls on them unless they act.

Well, there are some things that I just can’t get out of my head, and they start to annoy me after a while. Sometimes they’re of my own creation, as well – and they’re just as annoying. It’s not only other people’s ear worms that bug me, it’s my own, as well.

Buddhism teaches us not to try to run away from suffering. You have to confront suffering. You have to look deeply into the nature of suffering in order to recognize its cause, the making of the suffering.

I have spent every New Year’s Eve since 1992 in Lourdes. I spend the hour of my birth every year in the grotto. It’s a place with meaning for me.

I’m crazy, but I’m not too crazy.

We should take care not to make the intellect our goal; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality.

Faith consists in believing when it is beyond the power of reason to believe.

The ego is nothing other than the focus of conscious attention.

Men must know their limitations.

Weak character will neutralize all of the other possible good qualities a person might possess.

When you become a Christian, something truly amazing happens: God comes to live inside your heart. You become the home of God.

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.