"Man has been endowed with reason, with the power to create, so that he can add to what he's been given. But up to now he hasn't been a creator, only a destroyer. Forests keep disappearing, rivers dry up, wild life's become extinct, the climate's ruined and the land grows poorer and uglier every day."

"Knowledge is of no value unless you put it into practice."

"There is nothing new in art except talent."

"No psychologist should pretend to understand what he does not understand... Only fools and charlatans know everything and understand nothing."

"For all their current prestige, Osama bin Laden and the suicide bombers are still regarded in all but the most desperate districts of Gaza or Peshawar as romantics with little chance of more than symbolic victories, however bloody and brutal. That gives both the Middle East and the West a small and distant hope of security."

"I certainly notice the vitality in Belfast, which wasn't there in the Seventies. There was a war going on then. Now there are cranes everywhere. There really is a sense of renewal and hope."

"Expect the best, plan for the worst, and prepare to be surprised."

"If you don't have a spiritual practice in place when times are good, you can't expect to suddenly develop one during a moment of crisis."