Inclusive, good-quality education is a foundation for dynamic and equitable societies.

Good sense does not always lie with the loudest shouters, nor can we say that a large, unruly crowd is always the best arbiter of what is right

Forgiving is not forgetting; it’s actually remembering–remembering and not using your right to hit back. It’s a second chance for a new beginning. And the remembering part is particularly important. Especially if you don’t want to repeat what happened.

One of the sayings in our country is Ubuntu – the essence of being human. Ubuntu speaks particularly about the fact that you can’t exist as a human being in isolation. It speaks about our interconnectedness. You can’t be human all by yourself, and when you have this quality – Ubuntu – you are known for your generosity. We think of ourselves far too frequently as just individuals, separated from one another, whereas you are connected and what you do affects the whole World. When you do well, it spreads out; it is for the whole of humanity.

The final and full revelation of God is not a book, it is a person. Jesus Christ.

Who can stop climate change? We can. You and you and you, and me. And it is not just that we can stop it, we have a responsibility to do so that began in the genesis of humanity when God commanded the earliest human inhabitants of the Garden of Eden, “to till it and keep it”. To “keep” it; not to abuse it, not to make as much money as possible from it, not to destroy it.

When people decide they want to be free, there is nothing that can stop them.

The world’s forests are a shared stolen treasure that we must put back for our children’s future.

I will never tell anyone to pick up a gun. But I will pray for the man who picks up a gun, pray that he will be less cruel than he might otherwise have been.

Too frequently we think we have to do spectacular things. Yet if we remember that the sea is actually made up of drops of water and each drop counts, each one of us can do our little bit where we are. Those little bits can come together and almost overwhelm the world. Each one of us can be an oasis of peace.

The moment our dignity is undermined, we get up in arms and want to see our dignity restored – especially if we are humiliated.

Despite all of the ghastliness in the world, human beings are made for goodness. The ones that are held in high regard are not militarily powerful, nor even economically prosperous. They have a commitment to try and make the world a better place.

Love is much more demanding than law.

Each of us is precious to God because each of us has their name written on the palms of God’s hands. And God says there are no outsiders – black, white, yellow, short, tall, young, old, rich, poor, gay, lesbian, straight – everyone. All belong. And God says, I have only you to help me realize my dream. Help me.

There is only one way to eat an elephant, a bit at a time.

The world is awful but also the world is beautiful. Human beings are awful, but ultimately human beings are tremendous.

A life of wholeness does not depend on what we experience. Wholeness depends on how we experience our lives.

We must not only speak about forgiveness and reconciliation, we must act on these principles.

You and I are created for transcendence, laughter, caring. God deliberately did not make the world perfect, for God is looking for you and me to be fellow workers with God.

True reconciliation is never cheap, for it is based on forgiveness which is costly. Forgiveness in turn depends on repentance, which has to be based on an acknowledgment of what was done wrong, and therefore on disclosure of the truth. You cannot forgive what you do not know.

We must embrace our differences, even celebrate our diversity. We must glory in the fact that God created each of us as unique human beings. God created us differently, but God did not create us for separation. God created us differently that we might recognize our need for one another. We must reverence our uniqueness, reverence everything that makes us what we are: our language, our culture, our religious tradition.

Never let anyone make you feel inferior for being who you are. When you live the life you were meant to live, in freedom and dignity.

No peace is impossible when people are determined to achieve it.

There are things that must evoke our anger to show we care. It is what we do with that anger. If we direct that energy we can use it positively or destructively.

Arrogance really comes from insecurity, and in the end, our feeling that we are bigger than others is really the flip side of our feeling that we are smaller than others.

There can be no healing without truth.

Every single one of us can do something, however small, to make a difference

Anything war can do, peace can do better.

There is room for everyone; there is room for every culture, race, language, and point of view.

Making the truth public is a form of justice. This is a moral universe and you’ve got to take account of the fact that truth and lies and goodness and evil are things that matter.

One of the greatest gifts we can give to another generation is our experience, our wisdom.

Nursing a grudge is bad for your health.

Each one of us can be an oasis of peace.

And you remember the rainbow in the Bible is the sign of peace. The rainbow is the sign of prosperity. We want peace, prosperity, and justice and we can have it when all the people of God, the rainbow people of God, work together.

My vote is my secret.

Have you seen a symphony orchestra? There is a person at the back carrying a triangle. Now and again the conductor will point to him or her and that person will play “ting.” That might seem so insignificant, but in the conception of the composer something irreplaceable would be lost to the total beauty of the symphony if that “ting” did not happen.

Easter says to us that despite everything to the contrary, his will for us will prevail, love will prevail over hate, justice over injustice and oppression, peace overexploitation and bitterness.

The future of our fragile, beautiful planet home is in our hands. As God’s family, we are stewards of God’s creation. We can be wantonly irresponsible, or we can be caring and compassionate. God says, “I have set before you life and death… Choose life.

Laugh more. Don’t forget to enjoy the blessings that God bestows on this beautiful planet.

There is no situation that is not transformable. There is no person who is hopeless. There is no set of circumstances that cannot be turned about by ordinary human beings and their natural capacity for love of the deepest sort.

Forgiving is a gift to the forgiver as well to the perpetrator.

Once lost, trust can only be regained if we are as good as our word.

Like humility, generosity comes from seeing that everything we have and everything we accomplish comes from God’s grace and God’s love for us… Certainly, it is from experiencing this generosity of God and the generosity of those in our life that we learn gratitude and to be generous to others.

In order to turn around and do something better, we must first escape the vicious circle of self-righteousness and denial. And that calls for the humility to say “I’m sorry. Please forgive me.”

Nuclear abolition is the democratic wish of the world’s people and has been our goal almost since the dawn of the atomic age. Together, we have the power to decide whether the nuclear era ends in a bang or worldwide celebration.

Dream of a world where children can laugh and play and not be blown up by a mine they thought was a toy.

A person who is assured of the love of God will see his fellow men in a different light and treat them and himself differently, and of course this also applies to business leaders.

Our Lord wanted us to be Christ-like. Christ-like doesn’t mean not having faults. It means that you do actually have a capacity to draw out the good that is in others.

Trust is one of the fundamentals of human existence. We need to be able to trust one another. A man who can no longer trust anyone will become sick.

An abusive relationship should be easy to identify though often one of the most difficult to end.

Life is funny and we are really funny, especially when we get to be hoity-toity; we can be so ridiculous. Life is fun.

We are always at our best when compassion enables us to recognize the unique pressures and singular stories of the people on the other side of our conflicts.

I can’t control what happens to me, but I can control how I respond to it.

Children learn about the nature of the world from their family. They learn about power and about justice, about peace, and about compassion within the family. Whether we oppress or liberate our children in our relationships with them will determine whether they grow up to oppress and be oppressed or to liberate and be liberated.

I think it is a good exercise to ask oneself, “How would I have wanted to be treated.

God is not upset that Gandhi was not a Christian, because God is not a Christian! All of God’s children and their different faiths help us to realize the immensity of God.

I am not interested in picking up crumbs of compassion thrown from the table of someone who considers himself my master. I want the full menu of rights.

We can carry the burden of hurt throughout our lives. We can make the hurt that we have experienced the defining aspect of our stories of ourselves. That means that somebody else gets to say who we are, somebody else gets to decide how we feel, and somebody else gets to decide how we see the world. Forgiveness not only frees us from the burden of someone else’s opinion of us, but it allows us the opportunity to really write a story of ourselves that we can love, enjoy, relish, and live into.

Ultimately our greatest joy is when we seek to do good for others.

Our maturity will be judged by how well we are able to agree to disagree and yet continue to love one another, to care for one another, and cherish one another and seek the greater good of the other.

To treat anyone as if they were less than human, less than a brother or a sister, no matter what they have done, is to contravene the very laws of our humanity.

We are made for loving. If we don’t love, we will be like plants without water.

Order to truly forgive oneself, one must either explicitly or implicitly acknowledge that one’s behavior was wrong and accept responsibility or blame for such behavior.

It is true that when we harm others, we harm ourselves; but it is just as true that when we help others, we also help ourselves.

We must be ready to learn from one another, not claiming that we alone possess all truth and that somehow we have a corner on God.

All of us experience fear, but when we confront and acknowledge it, we are able to turn it into courage. Being courageous does not mean never being scared; it means acting as you know you must even though you are undeniably afraid.

Love is stronger than hate.

Dream. Dream. And then go for it!

Healing means that our dignity is restored and we are able to move forward in our lives.

Religion is like a knife: you can either use it to cut bread or stick in someone’s back.

It is our moral obligation to give every child the very best education possible.

Hate has no place in the house of God.

In God’s family, there are no outsiders, no enemies.

When we see the face of a child, we think of the future. We think of their dreams about what they might become, and what they might accomplish

If we could but recognize our common humanity, that we do belong together, that our destinies are bound up in one another’s, that we can be free only together, that we can be human only together, then a glorious world would come into being where all of us lived harmoniously together as members of one family, the human family.

Like when you sit in front of a fire in winter — you are just there in front of the fire. You don’t have to be smart or anything. The fire warms you.

My father used to say, don’t raise your voice; improve your argument.

God’s dream is that you and I and all of us will realize that we are family, that we are made for togetherness, for goodness, and for compassion.

God’s love is too great to be confined to any one side of a conflict or to any one religion.

Forgiveness says you are given another chance to make a new beginning.

Resentment and anger are bad for your blood pressure and your digestion.

How could you have a soccer team if all were goalkeepers? How would it be an orchestra if all were French horns?

We have a planet that is at risk, where resources don’t have permanent life. We are going to have to make the decision: are we going to survive or are we waiting for our extinction? One day we will wake up and find people are fighting not for oil but water.

Universal education is not only a moral imperative but an economic necessity, to pave the way toward making many more nations self-sufficient and self-sustaining.

Give young people a greater voice. They are the future and they are much wiser than we give them credit for.

Forgiveness is nothing less than the way we heal the world. We heal the world by healing each and every one of our hearts. The process is simple, but it is not easy.

You don’t choose your family, they are God’s gift to you, as you are to them.

In our own ways, we are all broken. Out of that brokenness, we hurt others. Forgiveness is the journey we take toward healing the broken parts. It is how we become whole again.

The quality of human life on our planet is nothing more than the sum total of our daily interactions with one another. Each time we help, and each time we harm, we have a dramatic impact on our world.

Give a man a fish and feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and feed him for a lifetime. Teach a man to cycle and he will realize fishing is stupid and boring.

Love is universal. You don’t have to tell somebody that loving is better than hating. You don’t have to believe in God to know that stealing is bad. All of God’s children and their different faiths help to realize the immensity of God. No faith contains the whole truth about God. And certainly, Christians don’t have a corner on God. All of us belong to God.

Do your little bit of good where you are; it’s those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.

Today we have no excuses.

If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.

I’m coming to believe more and more in the truth that everything we do has consequences. a good deed doesn’t just evaporate and disappear.

True peace must be anchored in justice and an unwavering commitment to universal rights for all humans, regardless of ethnicity, religion, gender, national origin or any other identity attribute.

Renewing a relationship is a creative act. We make a new relationship. It is possible to build a new relationship regardless of the realities of the old relationship.

We are each made for goodness, love, and compassion. Our lives are transformed as much as the world is when we live with these truths.

It is through weakness and vulnerability that most of us learn empathy and compassion and discover our soul.

Language is very powerful. Language does not just describe reality. Language creates the reality it describes.

I would like to share with you two simple truths: there is nothing that cannot be forgiven, and there is no one un-deserving of forgiveness.

Do not heal in isolation. Connecting with others is how we develop compassion for others and for ourselves.

People are not born hating each other and wishing to cause harm. It is a learned condition.

Children are a wonderful gift. They have an extraordinary capacity to see into the heart of things and to expose sham and humbug for what they are.

A person is a person because he recognizes others as persons.

When your dreams turn to dust, vacuum.

Life is more than breath and a heartbeat; meaning and purpose are the life of life.

Suffering is part and parcel of the human condition, but suffering can either embitter or ennoble us. It can ennoble us and become a spirituality of transformation when we find meaning in it.

We need other human beings in order to be human.

Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness

There is nothing more difficult than waking someone who is only pretending to be asleep.

Because forgiveness is like this: a room can be dank because you have closed the windows, you’ve closed the curtains. But the sun is shining outside, and the air is fresh outside. In order to get that fresh air, you have to get up and open the window and draw the curtains apart.

It is by standing up for the rights of girls and women that we measure up as men.

Differences are not intended to separate, to alienate. We are different precisely in order to realize our need of one another.

Forgiveness does not mean condoning what has been done. Forgiving means abandoning your right to pay back the perpetrator in his own coin.

When we see others as the enemy, we risk becoming what we hate. When we oppress others, we end up oppressing ourselves. All of our humanity is dependent upon recognizing the humanity in others.

Without forgiveness, there can be no future for a relationship between individuals or within and between nations.

There comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out of the river. We need to go upstream and find out why they’re falling in.

Your ordinary acts of love and hope point to the extraordinary promise that every human life is of inestimable value.

If you want peace, you don’t talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies.