Self-respect is the root of discipline: The sense of dignity grows with the ability to say no to oneself.
When I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I am old, I admire kind people.
In our own lives the voice of God speaks slowly, a syllable at a time. Reaching the peak of years, dispelling some of our intimate illusions and learning how to spell the meaning of life-experiences backwards, some of us discover how the scattered syllables form a single phrase.
What seems to be a stone is a drama.
Man is not a beast of burden, and the Sabbath is not for the purpose of enhancing the efficiency of his work.
We must first peer into the darkness, feel strangled and entombed in the hopelessness of living without God, before we are ready to feel the presence of His living light.
It is dangerous to take human freedom for granted, to regard it as a prerogative rather than as an obligation, as an ultimate fact rather than as an ultimate goal. It is the beginning of wisdom to be amazed at the fact of our being free.
Every little deed counts.
The primary purpose of prayer is not to make requests. The primary purpose is to praise, to sing, to chant. Because the essence of prayer is a song, and man cannot live without a song. Prayer may not save us. But prayer may make us worthy of being saved.
In any free society where terrible wrongs exist, some are guilty – all are responsible.
The test of love is in how one relates not to saints and scholars but to rascals.
In a controversy, the instant we feel anger, we have already ceased striving for truth and have begun striving for ourselves.
To serve does not mean to surrender but to share.
God is not a hypothesis derived from logical assumptions, but an immediate insight, self-evident as light. He is not something to be sought in the darkness with the light of reason. He is the light.