Conditions

As soon as other people's goodness becomes a condition for our own goodness, we have lost all our responsibility for our own humanity.

Choice

The holy life by definition is about making a choice. The very difference between a monastic and a lay person is that a monastic makes a choice,  and that a lay person doesn't. Lay life is marked by not making choices, and thus immorality.

Cynism

Cynism lies at the root of all evil.

Pulling off labels

Quitting bad habits is just like pulling off a sticky old label. You got to pull at the edges first, then go around, and only then can you pull off the center of the sticker. Similarly,  we have to find methods to gradually pull off our bad habits.

Differences in spirituality

Wherever you go, you will find that people build the same kind of shopping centers, similar kind of aiports, same kind of pump stations and similar kind of libraries. That makes it quite strange that we build our religious buildings so quite different - and often intentionally so.

Salvaged

"The anguish of loneliness bring blasts from the storm center of death: only that can be really yours which is another's, for only what you have given, be it only in the gratitude of acceptance, is salvaged from the nothing which some day will have been your life."
- Dag Hammarskjoeld

Sincerity

Sincerity is more powerful than anything else. A man with power or money still needs to show a lot to prove his influence, but a man of sincerity only needs to look a person in the eyes.