Your talent is God's gift to you. What you do with it is your gift back to God.

A single rose can be my garden... a single friend, my world.

The fact that I can plant a seed and it becomes a flower, share a bit of knowledge and it becomes another's, smile at someone and receive a smile in return, are to me continual spiritual exercises.

If we wish to free ourselves from enslavement, we must choose freedom and the responsibility this entails.

Change is the end result of all true learning.

The best students come from homes where education is revered: where there are books, and children see their parents reading them.

What we call the secret of happiness is no more a secret than our willingness to choose life.

I have too much respect for people to try to control them. But they are estranged from love, afraid to reach out and touch one another. We're afraid to appear sentimental or speak in platitudes because people will say, 'What a jerk!' It takes courage in our culture to be a lover.

Love is always bestowed as a gift - freely, willingly and without expectation. We don't love to be loved; we love to love.

Love is life. And if you miss love, you miss life.

We all need each other.

Worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow, it only saps today of its joy.

When we sit at the table, there is more going on than satisfying hunger. It is sad to think of those who eat simply to satisfy their hunger and who do not permit themselves to linger under the many spells offered by a good meal - the satisfaction of our hearts, our minds and our spirits.

Death is a challenge. It tells us not to waste time... It tells us to tell each other right now that we love each other.

The minute we stop learning, we begin death, the process of dying. We learn from each other with every action we perform. We are teaching goodness or evil every time we step out of the house and into the street.

I believe that you control your destiny, that you can be what you want to be. You can also stop and say, 'No, I won't do it, I won't behave his way anymore. I'm lonely and I need people around me, maybe I have to change my methods of behaving,' and then you do it.

Only the weak are cruel. Gentleness can only be expected from the strong.

I have been a teacher myself all my life. I have an intense passion to share with people. Our only salvation is in knowledge, in learning.

If I don't have wisdom, I can teach you only ignorance.

I am a teacher. And I think I am a serious one who happens to be enjoying life.

I still get wildly enthusiastic about little things... I play with leaves. I skip down the street and run against the wind.

What love we've given, we'll have forever. What love we fail to give, will be lost for all eternity.

Don't smother each other. No one can grow in the shade.

It is paradoxical that many educators and parents still differentiate between a time for learning and a time for play without seeing the vital connection between them.

The purpose of life is to help others, and if you can't help them, won't you at least not hurt them? I know that is a platitude, that that is sentimental and can easily be attacked. But loving, caring is simple, and we make it complex. Our own neuroses make it complex.

Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.

Food is celebratory. People who don't cook don't know how much fun they're missing.