All religions are designed to teach us how to live, joyfully, serenely, and kindly, in the midst of suffering.

It's a great event to get outside and enjoy nature. I find it very exciting no matter how many times I see bald eagles.

Look into your own heart, discover what it is that gives you pain and then refuse, under any circumstance whatsoever, to inflict that pain on anybody else.

Jesus did not spend a great deal of time discoursing about the trinity or original sin or the incarnation, which have preoccupied later Christians. He went around doing good and being compassionate.

Each of the world religions has its own particular genius, its own special insight into the nature and requirements of compassion, and has something unique to teach us.

I like silence; I'm a gregarious loner and without the solitude, I lose my gregariousness.

Compassion is not an option. It's the key to our survival.

Religious people often prefer to be right rather than compassionate. Often, they don't want to give up their egotism. They want their religion to endorse their ego, their identity.

Religion isn’t about believing things. It's ethical alchemy. It’s about behaving in a way that changes you, that gives you intimations of holiness and sacredness.

I am not interested in the afterlife. Religion is supposed to be about losing your ego, not preserving it eternally in optimum conditions.

Surely it's better to love others, however messy and imperfect the involvement, than to allow one's capacity for love to harden.

Had Satan not set himself in opposition to God . . . there would have been no need for God to send His Son to the cross.

The interesting thing about averages is that they hide the truth very effectively.

Competition makes you better, always, always makes you better, even if the competitor wins.

America has abandoned the strong woman of spirituality and is shacking up with the harlot of materialism.

Once I learned to read, I could not imagine my life otherwise.

Even popularity can be overdone. In Rome, along at first, you are full of regrets that Michelangelo died; but by and by, you only regret that you didn't see him do it.

Rashida Jones is simply glorious. Andy Samberg shines in a grounded performance that digs deep, sharply funny and touching, a breath of fresh comic air!

There are no unemployed, either in Russia or in Dartmoor jail, and for the same reason.

Bill Cosby is one of America's most successful black performers.

The good news is that more than ever, value accrues to those that show up, those that make a difference, those that do work that matters.