2. "Compassion is a practically acquired knowledge, like dancing. You must do it and practice diligently day by day".
— Karen Armstrong, author
3. "Islam teaches tolerance, not hatred; universal brotherhood, not enmity; peace, and not violence."
— Pervez Musharraf, Pakistani politician
4. "The true Islam has shown me that a blanket indictment of all white people is as wrong as when whites make blanket indictments against blacks."
— Malcom X, political leader, activist, and author
5. "Just as a candle cannot burn without fire, men cannot live without a spiritual life."
— Buddha
6. "Prayer does not change God, but it changes him who prays."
— Soren Kierkegaard, philosopher
8. "This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness."
— Dalai Lama
9. "I love you when you bow in your mosque, kneel in your temple, pray in your church. For you and I are sons of one religion, and it is the spirit."
— Khalil Gibran, author and philosopher
10. "There should be no discrimination against languages people speak, skin color, or religion."
— Malala Yousafzai, Nobel Prize laureate, Pakistani activist for the rights of women and girls
11. "Parents and schools should place great emphasis on the idea that it is all right to be different. Racism and all the other 'isms' grow from primitive tribalism, the instinctive hostility against those of another tribe, race, religion, nationality, class or whatever. You are a lucky child if your parents taught you to accept diversity."
— Roger Ebert, film critic
13. "As we grow in our consciousness, there will be more compassion and more love, and then the barriers between people, between religions, between nations will begin to fall. Yes, we have to beat down the separateness."
— Ram Dass, author and spiritual teacher
14. "Even though you can't expect to defeat the absurdity of the world, you must make the attempt. That's morality, that's religion, that's art, that's life."
— Phil Ochs, folk singer
15. "Religion doesn't make people bigots. People are bigots and they use religion to justify their ideology."
— Reza Azlan, author and public intellectual
16. "Since many of you do not belong to the Catholic Church and others are non-believers, from the bottom of my heart I give this silent blessing to each and every one of you, respecting the conscience of each one of you but knowing that each one of you is a child of God."
— Pope Francis
18. "Skip the religion and politics, head straight to the compassion. Everything else is a distraction."
— Talib Kweli, rapper
19. "Whether one believes in a religion or not, and whether one believes in rebirth or not, there isn't anyone who doesn't appreciate kindness and compassion."
— Dalai Lama
20. "These things will destroy the human race: politics without principle, progress without compassion, wealth without work, learning without silence, religion without fearlessness and worship without awareness."
— Anthony de Mello, Indian Jesuit priest and psychotherapist
21. "Religion is meant to teach us true spiritual human character. It is meant for self-transformation. It is meant to transform anxiety into peace, arrogance into humility, envy into compassion, to awaken the pure soul in man and his love for the Source, which is God."
— Radhanath Swami, yoga practitioner and spiritual guide
22. "One of the great strengths of the United States is... we have a very large Christian population — we do not consider ourselves a Christian nation or a Jewish nation or a Muslim nation. We consider ourselves a nation of citizens who are bound by ideals and a set of values."
24. "Teach a child what is wise, that is morality. Teach him what is wise and beautiful, that is religion!"
— Thomas Huxley, biologist
25. "Religion is among the most beautiful and most natural of all things — that religion which 'sees God in clouds and hears Him in the wind,' which endows every object of sense with a living soul, which finds in the system of nature whatever is holy, mysterious and venerable, and inspires the bosom with sentiments of awe and veneration."
— William Godwin, journalist, novelist, and political philosopher
26. "It doesn't matter how you pray. Just pray. All religions are beautiful and they all have one common belief. There's something bigger and greater than us that can give us and take from us life. It is better than the here and now."
— Mattie Stepanek, poet, and peace advocate
27. "Let your religion be less of a theory and more of a love affair."
— Gilbert K. Chesterton, writer, poet, and philosopher