At thirty I lived in a world where death wasn't immediately real; it was always something "out there." My deeply held illusions of immortality - a product of my very conservative religious upbringing - were still pretty much intact.

We come to love not by finding the perfect person, but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly.

Mounting an expedition to actualize a Compassionate Commonwealth of all peoples...is the great spiritual challenge of our time.

You can know what's in your life when you know what's in your heart.

The Greeks invented the idea of nemesis to show how any single virtue, stubbornly maintained gradually changes into a destructive vice. Our success, our industry, our habit of work have produced our economic nemesis. Work made modern men great, but now threatens to usurp our souls, to inundate the earth in things and trash, to destroy our capacity to love and wonder.

I've spent my life cultivating knowledge of myself. But the more I know myself, the more utterly mysterious I become.

When you genuinely lose your illusions, you begin to marvel at things, because you don't have the answers any more.