One of the things that has always surprised me is why Americans are so patient. Because they have seen not just that freedom has come, what they have seen is that there are some who used to be poor who are very rich, stinking rich some of them.
God hopes that we are going to love God back.
Being formed into a nation takes some doing.
Most of us have made the mistake that after they crossed the Red Sea they spent 40 years in the wilderness fighting amongst each other.
I don't often want to speak. I try to be a reasonable person and to be diplomatic, but you go to that place and you see the settlements, you see what has happened to the land that was owned by the Palestinians.
The worst thing that can happen to anybody in this cultural environment is to fail.
God would come down and lead us out of bondage. And God led us out of bondage.
I'm so thankful a significant majority of Americans are saying no to military intervention. We've got to find a solution that will in the end be one that makes Syria a better country, a better people.
I have often said to my Jewish friends: "Please just remember where you come from. Remember Yahweh, who said to the Israelites, 'Treat the alien well with justice.'" Almost all of the passion that we have has come from the inspiration that we have got from the Jewish Scriptures.
When a fire starts in one it just races through. And that is in a way unconscionable.
Each one of us is not a divine afterthought.
We are going to have to be very careful that we give people the hope that freedom is actually better than unfreedom.
[Pope Francis ] is taken a selfie!He's a tremendous breath of fresh air.
We were an extraordinary paradox. We are finite creatures made for the infinite.
We are fundamentally good, and evil is an aberration.
When we hear a story of the abuse of a child or the abuse of women almost all people are appalled by instances of that kind.
When the humility of someone is undermined, whether I like it or not mine is undermined as well.
I think that most of us would say that ubuntu basically speaks about what it means to be human.
Forgiving is not easy. It is not cheap.
People almost always imagine that life is going to be better in town and that the streets of the town are paved with gold.
You are not an afterthought, you are not an accident.
Our parents will maybe sometimes when they are upset with us and we have been troublesome say something like "Mommy really doesn't like a naughty child." And we think that we have to earn the approval, earn the love of our parents. And then we transfer it to God and think we have to earn... We don't have to earn it! God loves us.
Race should not be used to claim privileges and rights for one group, exclusively, which are denied other different groups. Then that is an illegitimate use of race.
People in apartheid South Africa can tell you that God cursed black people when they cursed Him. And so the hermetic people were condemned to be drawers of water and of wood.
When you think of the KKK, they actually have as their emblem a fiery cross. And they don't see any contradiction between the cross, an instrument of suffering that procured our reconciliation with God, and its use as a symbol for nefarious attacks on black people. But they believe that they are being obedient to God because they can read things that they see.
