If there is anything I have learned about men and women, it is that there is a deeper spirit of altruism than is ever evident. Just as the rivers we see are minor compared to the underground streams, so, too, the idealism that is visible is minor compared to what people carry in their hearts unreleased or scarcely released.

All people are endowed with the faculty of compassion, and for this reason can develop the humanitarian spirit.

Knowing all truth is less than doing a little bit of good.

If you study life deeply, its profundity will seize you suddenly with dizziness.

We must never allow the voice of humanity within us to be silenced. It is humanity's sympathy with all creatures that first makes us truly human.

Your life is something opaque, not transparent, as long as you look at it in an ordinary human way. But if you hold it up against the light of God's goodness, it shines and turns transparent, radiant and bright. And then you ask yourself in amazement: Is this really my own life I see before me?

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.