A balanced and skillful approach to life, taking care to avoid extremes, becomes a very important factor in conducting one's everyday existence.

Just as we take for granted the need to acquire proficiency in the basic academic subjects, I am hopeful that a time will come when we can take it for granted that children will learn, as part of the curriculum, the indispensability of inner values: love, compassion, justice, and forgiveness.

Man sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health.

[Animals] appreciate others' affection, they also have the sort of ability to show their own affection. And then as soon as we're born, child, no religious faith.

It is difficult to violently suppress people in the long run, as the example of the Soviet Union and the Eastern European countries has shown.

...it becomes clear that, given our diversity, no single religion satisfies all humanity. ... And since the majority does not practice religion, I am concerned to try to find a way to serve all humanity without appealing to religious faith.

I believe compassion to be one of the few things we can practice that will bring immediate and long-term happiness to our lives. I'm not talking about the short-term gratification of pleasures like sex, drugs or gambling (though I'm not knocking them), but something that will bring true and lasting happiness. The kind that sticks.