The whole purpose of religion is to facilitate love and compassion, patience, tolerance, humility, and forgiveness.

For a practitioner of love and compassion, an enemy is one of the most important teachers. Without an enemy you cannot practice tolerance, and without tolerance you cannot build a sound basis of compassion.

We all have the potential to be better than we are.

We are working as hard as we can; we are preparing ourselves as carefully as we can; we fully intend to make our contribution to the world in the coming century.

If you shift your focus from yourself to others, extend your concern to others, and cultivate the thought of caring for the well being of others, then this will have the immediate effect of opening up your life and helping you to reach out.

When we think carefully, we see that the brief elation we experience when appeasing sensual impulses may not be very different from what the drug addict feels when indulging his or her habit. Temporary relief is soon followed by a craving for more. And in just the same way that taking drugs in the end only causes trouble, so, too, does much of what we undertake to fulfill our immediate sensory desires.

I consider myself as a free spokesman for the people.