The sense of it may come with watching a flock of cedar waxwings eating wild grapes in the top of the woods on a November afternoon. Everything they do is leisurely. They pick the grapes with a curious deliberation, comb their feathers, converse in high windy whistles.
Now and then one will fly out and back in a sort of dancing flight full of whimsical flutters and turns. They are like farmers loafing in their own fields on Sunday. Though they have no Sundays, their days are full of sabbaths.

If people have a position on something and you try to argue them into changing it, you're going to strengthen that position.
If you want to change people's ideas, you shouldn't try to convince them intellectually. What you need to do is get them into a situation where they'll have to act on ideas, not argue about them.

For every gain in deep certitude there is a corresponding growth of superficial "doubt." This doubt is by no means opposed to genuine faith, but it mercilessly examines and questions the spurious "faith" of everyday life, the human faith which is nothing but the passive acceptance of conventional opinion.

When we come into contact with the other person, our thoughts and actions should express our mind of compassion, even if that person says and does things that are not easy to accept. We practice in this way until we see clearly that our love is not contingent upon the other person being lovable.

Manners are a sensitive awareness of the feelings of others. If you have that awareness, you have good manners, no matter what fork you use.

God had brought me to my knees and made me acknowledge my own nothingness, and out of that knowledge I had been reborn. I was no longer the centre of my life and therefore I could see God in everything.

They say such nice things about people at their funerals that it makes me sad that I'm going to miss mine by just a few days.

No one finds time
for prayer.
You either take time for it
or you don't get it.

The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state. It must be the guide and the critic of the state, and never its tool. If the church does not recapture its prophetic zeal, it will become an irrelevant social club without moral or spiritual authority.

There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is
translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you
in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will
 never exist through any other medium and be lost.  The world will not
 have it.  It is not your business to determine how good it is, nor how
 valuable, nor how it compares with other expressions.  It is your
 business to keep it yours, clearly and directly, to keep the channel
 open.... You have to keep open and aware directly to the urge that
 motivates you.  Keep the channel open.