Quotes I Found in the Book "This I Believe"

"I believe in the unanswered questions of children. I believe we can stand right at the boundary between known and unknown and gaze into that cavern and be exhilarated rather than frightened."

Alan Lightman

"If you want others to be happy--practice compassion. If you want to be happy---practice compassion."

The Dalai Lama

"I believe in empathy. I believe in the kind of empathy that is created, through imagination and through intimate personal relationships."

Azar Nafisi

"When you are inspired by some great purpose, some extraordinary project, all your thoughts break their bonds, you mind transcends limitations, your consciousness expands in every direction, and you find yourself in a new great wonderful world."

"If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should in each man's life find sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility."

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

"The greatest gift of life is love."

Leo Buscaglia

"I believe in working to create a world which does not glorify violence or war. I believe that these days, daring to voice your opinions, daring to find out information from a variety of sources, can be an act of courage."

Jody Williams

"I seem to be of two minds--the power of materalist science to explain everything from the behavior of galaxies to that of molecules, atoms and their subatomic components. On the other hand, the reality of subjective sensations, desires and ---may we say---illusions composes the basic substance of our existence, and religion alone, in its many forms attempts to address, organize and placate these. I believe that religions' faith will continue to be an essential part of being human, as it has for me."

John Updike

"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious---the knowledge of existence of something unfathomable to us, the manifestation of the most profound reason coupled with the most brilliant beauty."

Albert Einstein

"I am repeatedly struck gby the healing power or connection created by being fully there in the quiet understanding of another. I believe in the power of presence. It is not only something we give to others. It is something that changes me---and always for the better."

Debbie Hall, psychologist

Every man has a religion---has something in heaven or earth which he will give everything else for---something which absorbs him---which may seem useless by others---yet it is his lodestar. It is his master."

Walt Whitman

"I believe in poetry as a way of surviving the emotional chaos, spiritual confusions and traumatic events that come with being alive."

Gregory Orr