"We are all so much together, but we are all dying of loneliness."

"There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats."

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

"Thought is the strongest thing we have. Work done by true and profound thought - that is a real force."

"A man is truly ethical only when he obeys the compulsion to help all life which he is able to assist, and shrinks from injuring anything that lives."

"Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful."

"Constant kindness can accomplish much. As the sun makes ice melt, kindness causes misunderstanding, mistrust, and hostility to evaporate."

"Whoever is spared personal pain must feel himself called to help in diminishing the pain of others. We must all carry our share of the misery which lies upon the world."

"The first step in the evolution of ethics is a sense of solidarity with other human beings."

"The only ones among you who will be really happy are those who will have sought and found how to serve."

"Life becomes harder for us when we live for others, but it also becomes richer and happier."

"I have always held firmly to the thought that each one of us can do a little to bring some portion of misery to an end."

"Anyone who proposes to do good must not expect people to roll stones out of his way, but must accept his lot calmly, even if they roll a few stones upon it."

"One who gains strength by overcoming obstacles possesses the only strength which can overcome adversity."

"Happiness? That's nothing more than health and a poor memory."

"A man can do only what he can do. But if he does that each day he can sleep at night and do it again the next day."

"He who does not reflect his life back to God in gratitude does not know himself."

"We must fight against the spirit of unconscious cruelty with which we treat the animals. Animals suffer as much as we do. True humanity does not allow us to impose such sufferings on them. It is our duty to make the whole world recognize it. Until we extend our circle of compassion to all living things, humanity will not find peace."

"Revenge... is like a rolling stone, which, when a man hath forced up a hill, will return upon him with a greater violence, and break those bones whose sinews gave it motion."

"The interior joy we feel when we have done a good deed is the nourishment the soul requires."

"Very little of the great cruelty shown by men can really be attributed to cruel instinct. Most of it comes from thoughtlessness or inherited habit. The roots of cruelty, therefore, are not so much strong as widespread. But the time must come when inhumanity protected by custom and thoughtlessness will succumb before humanity championed by thought. Let us work that this time may come."

"Humanitarianism consists in never sacrificing a human being to a purpose."

"A man is ethical only when life, as such, is sacred to him, that of plants and animals as that of his fellow men, and when he devotes himself helpfully to all life that is in need of help."

"The thinking (person) must oppose all cruel customs, no matter how deeply rooted in tradition and surrounded by a halo. When we have a choice, we must avoid bringing torment and injury into the life of another."

"I don't know what your destiny will be, but one thing I know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who will have sought and found how to serve."

"Serious illness doesn't bother me for long because I am too inhospitable a host."

"Das GlA1?4ck ist das einzige, das sich verdoppelt, wenn man es teilt."

"The true worth of a man is not to be found in man himself, but in the colours and textures that come alive in others."

"You don't live in a world all your own. Your brothers are here too."

"As soon as man does not take his existence for granted, but beholds it as something unfathomably mysterious, thought begins."

"One truth stands firm. All that happens in world history rests on something spiritual. If the spiritual is strong, it creates world history. If it is weak, it suffers world history."

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

"Never say there is nothing beautiful in the world anymore. There is always something to make you wonder in the shape of a tree, the trembling of a leaf."

"The African is my brother but he is my younger brother by several centuries."

"The tragedy in a man's life is what dies inside of him while he lives."

"The purpose of human life is to serve, and to show compassion and the will to help others."

"Love . . . includes fellowship in suffering in joy and in effort."

"Man can no longer live for himself alone. We must realize that all life is valuable and that we are united to all life. From this knowledge comes our spiritual relationship with the universe."

"I therefore used the last ten minutes of our classes to recite with them words from the Bible and verses from hymns, so that they would know them and the words would stay with them throughout their lives. The aim of my teaching was to bring to their hearts and thoughts the great truths of the Gospels so religion would have meaning in their lives and give them the strength to resist the irreligious forces that might assail them. I also tried to awaken in them a love for the Church, and a desire for that hour of spiritual peace to be found in the Sunday service. I taught them to respect traditional doctrines, but at the same time to hold fast to the saying of Paul that where the spirit of Christ is, there is freedom."

"My life is my argument."

"As we know life in ourselves we want to understand life in the universe in order to enter into harmony with it."

"An optimist is a person who sees a green light everywhere, while a pessimist sees only the red stoplight... the truly wise person is colorblind."

"It's not enough merely to exist. Every man has to seek in his own way to make his own self more noble and to realize his own true worth."

"The thinking man must oppose all cruel customs, no matter how deeply rooted in tradition and surrounded by a halo. When we have a choice, we must avoid bringing torment and injury into the life of another, even the lowliest creature; but to do so is to renounce our manhood and shoulder a guilt which nothing justifies."

"True philosophy must start from the most immediate and comprehensive fact of consciousness: 'I am life that wants to live, in the midst of life that wants to live."

"Man has lost the capacity to foresee and to forestall. He will end by destroying the earth."

"Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing."

"Compassion, in which all ethics must take root, can only attain its full breadth and depth if it embraces all living creatures and does not limit itself to mankind."

"In everyone's life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit."

"Man is a clever animal who behaves like an imbecile."