I'm sure Putnam is right that there's been a decline in certain kinds of organizations like bowling leagues. But people participate in communities in other ways.

One can't understand the Christian Right and similar movements unless one sees them as reactive - they're reacting to what they call secular humanism

A few years ago, a priest working in a slum section of a European city was asked why he was doing it, and replied, 'So that the rumor of God may not completely disappear.

Let me say again that the relationship is asymmetrical: there's no democracy without a market economy, but you can have a market economy without democracy.

Unlike puppets we have the possibility of stopping in our movements, looking up and perceiving the machinery by which we have been moved. In this act lies the first steps towards freedom.

If you are good for nothing else, you can still serve as a bad example.

In acute suffering the need for meaning is as strong or stronger than the need for happiness.

Even if one is interested only in one's own society, which is one's prerogative, one can understand that society much better by comparing it with others.

He who has the bigger stick has the better chance of imposing his definitions of reality.

The past is malleable and flexible, changing as our recollection interprets and re-explains what has happened.

Religion is the human attitude towards a sacred order that includes within it all being-human or otherwise-i.e., belief in a cosmos, the meaning of which both includes and transcends man.

Many have said, “Follow my steps” I say to you, create your own paths, and follow no one, live, risk it all, die and be free.

If you are going to be a prophet why not say things that bring love into your life! Think about Philippians 4:8.

The evangelical and religious community has much to contribute to our politics, yet our laws prevent you from speaking your minds from your own pulpits.

On their best days, writers all over the world are winning Pulitzers, all alone in their studios, with no one watching.

In New York, I find people so courteous and so generous. Free drinks in bars. Free taxi rides.

I'm putting you in Dink Meeker's toon. From now on, as far as you're concerned, Dink Meeker is God." "Then who are you?" "The personnel officer who hired God.

In planning an attack, persons have various roles.

When one has faith that the spring thaw will arrive, the winter winds seem to lose some of their punch.

It was like making a blunder at a party; there was nothing to do about it, it was dreadfully mortifying, but it showed a lack of sense to ascribe too much importance to it.

There is mercy in every place. And mercy, encouraging thought gives even affliction a grace and reconciles man to his lot.