People can only live fully by helping others to live. When you give life to friends you truly live. Cultures can only realize their further richness by honoring other traditions. And only by respecting natural life can humanity continue to exist.

You must not for one instant give up the effort to build new lives for yourselves. Creativity means to push open the heavy, groaning doorway to life.

Whatever the outcome may be, the important thing is to step forward on the path that you believe is right.

Knowledge itself is a neutral tool that can be used for good or evil. Wisdom, in contrast, always directs us toward happiness. The task of education must be to stimulate and unleash the wisdom that lies dormant in the lives of all young people. This is not a forced process, like pressing something into a preformed mold, but rather drawing out the potential which exists within.

Japan learned from the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that the tragedy wrought by nuclear weapons must never be repeated and that humanity and nuclear weapons cannot coexist.

Sometimes we complain without thinking much of it, but the frightening thing about complaining is that every time we do, a cloud descends over our heart, and our hope, appreciation and joy gradually wane.

I firmly believe that the mission of religion in the 21st century must be to contribute concretely to the peaceful coexistence of humankind.