I did not ask for success; I asked for wonder.

When religion speaks only in the name of authority rather than with the voice of compassion, its message becomes meaningless.

Life without commitment is not worth living.

Self-respect is the fruit of discipline; the sense of dignity grows with the ability to say no to oneself.

Indeed, the sort of crimes and even the amount of delinquency that fill the prophets of Israel with dismay do not go beyond that which we regard as normal, as typical ingredients of social dynamics. To us a single act of injustice--cheating in business, exploitation of the poor--is slight; to the prophets, a disaster. To us injustice is injurious to the welfare of the people; to the prophets it is a deathblow to existence: to us, an episode; to them, a catastrophe, a threat to the world.

The test of love is in how one relates not to saints and scholars but to rascals.

I have one talent, and that is the capacity to be tremendously surprised, surprised at life, at ideas. This is to me the supreme Hasidic imperative: Don't be old. Don't be stale.