Every nation makes decisions based on self-interest and defends them on the basis of morality.

To show compassion for an individual without showing concern for the structures of society that make him an object of compassion is to be sentimental rather than loving.

There are three kinds of patriots, two bad, one good. The bad ones are the uncritical lovers and the loveless critics. Good patriots carry on a lover's quarrel with their country, a reflection of God's lover's quarrel with all the world.

Love measures our stature: the more we love, the bigger we are.

Hope is a state of mind independent of the state of the world. If your heart's full of hope, you can be persistent when you can't be optimistic. You can keep the faith despite the evidence, knowing that only in so doing has the evidence any chance of changing. So while I'm not optimistic, I'm always very hopeful.

It is terribly important to realize that the leap of faith is not so much a leap of thought as of action. For while in many matters it is first we must see then we will act; in matters of faith it is first we must do then we will know, first we will be and then we will see. One must, in short, dare to act wholeheartedly without absolute certainty.

I asked an 85 year old professor, 'What makes you cry?' He said, 'Whenever I see or hear the truth.'