A person is truly a human if he or she learns, and teaches, and inspires others. It is difficult to regard as truly human someone who is ignorant and has no desire to learn.

Interfaith dialogue is a must today, and the first step in establishing it is forgetting the past, ignoring polemical arguments, and giving precedence to common points, which far outnumber polemical ones.

One will never reach distant shores, if he chooses to remain upon the dock, In fear his little ship of dreams may be dashed against the rocks.

A small minority in Turkey even accuses me of having political ambitions, when in fact I have been struggling with various illnesses for many years.

Today, people are talking about many things: the danger of war and frequent clashes, water and air pollution, hunger, the increasing erosion of moral values, and so on. As a result, many other concerns have come to the fore: peace, contentment, ecology, justice, tolerance, and dialogue. Unfortunately, despite certain promising precautions, those who should be tackling these problems tend to do so by seeking further ways to conquer and control nature and produce more lethal weapons.

I am not indifferent to the appreciation of kind people. [The voters were] extremely kind in naming me the world's top public intellectual, a title to which I can never see myself as entitled.

Only those who overflow with love will build the happy and enlightened world of the future.