If a tiny spark of God's love already burns within you, do not expose it to the wind, for it may get blown out. . . . Stay quiet with God. Do not spend your time in useless chatter. . . . Do not give yourself to others so completely that you have nothing left for yourself.
America treasures the relationship we have with our many Muslim friends, and we respect the vibrant faith of Islam which inspires countless individuals to lead lives of honesty, integrity, and morality. This year, may Eid also be a time in which we recognize the values of progress, pluralism, and acceptance that bind us together as a Nation and a global community. By working together to advance mutual understanding, we point the way to a brighter future for all.
Keeping stationary drains your brain, but moving around shows you new things, new inspiration, and keeps the blood moving.
When I contrast the loving Jesus, comprehending all things in his ample and tender charity, with those who profess to bear his name, marking their zeal by what they do not love, it seems to me as though men, like the witches of old, had read the Bible backward, and had taken incantations out of it for evil, rather than inspiration for good.
The landscape changes, so enjoy it: of course, you have to have an objective in mind - to reach the top. But as you are going up, more things can be seen, and it's no bother to stop now and again and enjoy the panorama around you. At every meter conquered, you can see a little further, so use this to discover things that you still had not noticed.
Revolutions are the locomotives of history.
The surest way to remain poor is to be an honest man.
[Americans] think that choice, as seen through the American lens, best fulfills an innate and universal desire for choice in all humans. Unfortunately, these beliefs are based on assumptions that don't always hold true in many countries, in many cultures.
A great man is one who seizes the vital issue in a complex question, what we might call the jugular vein of the whole organism, and spends his energies upon that
Below an income of. . . $60,000 a year, people are unhappy, and they get progressively unhappier the poorer they get. Above that, we get an absolutely flat line. . . . Money does not buy you experiential happiness, but lack of money certainly buys you misery.
Only the silent hear and those who do not remain silent do not hear.
If you're going to be an artist, real life is your inspiration.
If I'm going to do something, I do it spectacularly or I don't do it at all.
Abbie Hoffman's inspiration was, in a sense, inadvertent. I wanted to do something to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Woodstock at the time, and it just happened that Abbie died the same year. Hoffman was always an inspiration to me, for his activism and execution of that activism, and any of his books will give you a guide and a map to creating almost anything, if you apply it to what it is you want to do.
Enthusiasm is a kind of faith that has been set afire
Our lives are complex; our emotions are complex; our intellectual desires are complex. I believe that architecture … needs to mirror that complexity in every single space that we have, in every intimacy that we possess.
The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.
For a stalk to grow or a flower to open there must be time that cannot be forced; nine months must go by for the birth of a human child; to write a book or compose music often years must be dedicated to patient research. . . To find the mystery there must be patience, interior purification, silence, waiting.
The best educators are the ones that inspire their students. That inspiration comes from a passion that teachers have for the subject they're teaching. Most commonly, that person spent their lives studying that subject, and they bring an infectious enthusiasm to the audience.
Boston was a great city to grow up in, and it probably still is. We were surrounded by two very important elements: academia and the arts. I was surrounded by theater, music, dance, museums. And I learned how to sail on the Charles River. So I had a great childhood in Boston. It was wonderful