20th-century Religious Leader Quotes

Pope John Paul II

Mother Teresa

Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama

Pope John Paul I

Ruhollah Khomeini

Nhat Hanh

Aga Khan IV

The true way and the sure way to friendship is through humility-being open to each other, accepting each other just as we are, knowing each other.

None are so poor that they have nothing to give...and none are so rich that they have nothing to receive.

Pope John Paul II

I request you to try to be warm-hearted. I ask this of you because these mental attitudes actually bring us happiness.

Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama

When you hear that my body has ceased to exist, please do not feel sad. Just look deeply and see that my life and work continue in so many friends, so many young people, in their own ways and through their work. I will continue in everyone and everything I have ever touched. I have nothinng to fear and nothing to regret.

Given the immense wealth made from the African, both from his person and his labor, one would have thought that when liberation came there would have been a special financial consideration accorded them, at the least, humane treatment. Neither occurred: Africans were never paid reparations nor treated humanely even to the present.

Herbert Daughtry

Your life of indifference to the risen Christ and of halfhearted attention now and then to a few of his commandments will appear on that day as supremely blameworthy and infinitely foolish, and you will... weep that you did not change. 8

For many wealthy people, giving a tenth is a way of robbing God. Their tithe becomes a tip.

Haddon Robinson

We teach that a person must practice only one cultivation way. No matter how you practice cultivation, you should not mess up your cultivation by adding other things.

The optimist, as you probably know, is a person who, when he wears out his shoes, just figures he's back on his feet.

Hartman Rector Jr.

It does not matter what your circumstances are; the instant you begin to thank God, even though your situation has not changed, you begin to change. The key that unlocks the gates of heaven is a thankful heart. Entrance into the courts of God comes as you simply begin to praise the Lord.

Francis Frangipane

You, our youth of today, are among the most illustrious spirits to be born into mortality in any age of the world. Yours is a noble heritage and a wonderful opportunity.

Conversations cease when we learn to discover the joys of internalization.

In human relationships, as mutual love deepens, there comes a time when two friends convey their exchanges without words. They can sit in silence sharing an experience or simply enjoying each other's presence without saying anything.

The East has always been very fortunate in being supported with a very strong foundation of Buddha Dharma.... The downside is that the changes of the modern world, and the East trying to keep up with the economic development—as we call call it—process often has distanced laymen from the Buddhist teachings. Livelihood and survival as well as the increase of material belongings has become so very strong, that oftentimes we find the seriousness with which Dharma is practiced is limited to monastic institutions.

Khandro Rinpoche

Surely there is not a Muslim in the world who does not aspire to freedom in principle.

Mustafa Ef. Ceric

Sun has never deprived anyone of its light and energy irrespective of their caste and religion. Despite this, if it is being linked to communalism then I request such people to stay in their rooms during the day without sunlight.

Yogi Adityanath

By our very endowment as children of an Eternal Father we have had implanted within our souls the urgency to be free. It is natural for us to want to be accountable for our own fates because there is a whispering within us confirming that this accountability is absolutely essential to the attainment of our eternal destiny.

It is not wrong to want to live better; what is wrong is a style of life which is presumed to be better when it is directed towards 'having' rather than 'being,' and which wants to have more, not in order to be more but in order to spend life in enjoyment as an end in itself.

Pope John Paul I

Freedom is not a self-preserving gift. It has to be earned, and it has to be protected.

Have you stopped seeing great things happen in your life? Perhaps you have stopped believing that God can work in a mighty way even in our generation.

Peace doesn't come from finding a lake with no storms. It comes from having Jesus in the boat.

I said to myself if Christianity is dead, I will sit at its tomb and will weep until it arises again, just as Mary Magdalene sat at the tomb of Jesus and wept until Jesus showed Himself. Then when I came out of prison I saw Christianity is not dead. The number of practicing Christians in Rumania according to the figures given by the Communists themselves in 20 years of Communist dictatorship has grown 300 percent.

Richard Wurmbrand

God bestows His Compassion upon all beings, always, and His Love and His Way is to bring lives together by pressing them together. God possesses a Love which spreads and intermingles with all lives. In the same way, among human beings there is also such a true Love, such a true, real feeling. When that Love is operating, when it is working, then it is God's work to take it and put it in its appropriate place. That is the Form of Love. That Love, that Divine Love, has brought us together as one.

Bawa Muhaiyaddeen

Every bishop can testify to the promptings that attend calls to serve in the Church. Frequently the call seems to be for the benefit not so much of those to be taught or led as for the person who is to teach or lead.

Thomas S. Monson

Reality is like a face reflected in the blade of a knife; its properties depend on the angle from which we view it.