“Your obligation is that of active participation. You should not act as knowledge-absorbing sponges, but as whetstones on which we can all sharpen our wits”

“Every human activity can be put at the service of the divine and of love. We should all exercise our gift to build community.”

“And of all illumination which human reason can give, none is comparable to the discovery of what we are, our nature, our obligations, what happiness we are capable of, and what are the means of attaining it.”

“The greatest thrilling experience that you and I can ever have in our hearts will be on those occasions when deep down we receive the witness that our acts and our labors are approved by our Heavenly Father.”

“We could decide simply to remain absorbed in the mysterious, unformed, free-play of reality. This would be the choice of the mystic who seeks to extinguish himself in God or Nirvana—analogous perhaps to the tendency among artists to obliterate themselves with alcohol or opiates. But if we value our participation in a shared reality in which it makes sense to make sense, then such self-abnegation would deny a central element of our humanity: the need to speak and act, to share our experience with others.”

“Even when we do not actively participate in our destiny, we are still on a chosen path. Life has a way of making decisions for us.”