David Brooks

I love learning about different religions, and discovering the different ways to worship, and to love the greatness and the higher being that surrounds us all. I definitely believe in a bigger presence, and I really respect all religions; at their core they all teach the same message – community and kindness and looking out for each other.

Most people are bothered by those passages of Scripture they do not understand, but the passages that bother me are those I do understand.

Priests are not men of the world; it is not intended that they should be; and a University training is the one best adapted to prevent their becoming so.

I feel the presence of a higher power. I believe that what you give is what you get. It’s universal law. I believe in the power of prayer and of words. I’ve learned that when you predict that negative things will happen, they do.

Still water has no mind to receive the image of the migrating geese.

Do not learn how to react learn how to respond.

The instant we feel anger we have already ceased striving for the truth, and have begun striving for ourselves.

Only one thing is impossible for God: To find any sense in any copyright law on the planet.

Tao in the world is like a river flowing home to the sea.

Be kind to all creatures; this is the true religion.

Christ and The Church: If he were to apply for a divorce on the grounds of cruelty, adultery and desertion, he would probably get one.

It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either of them.

I was kosher until I had my Bar Mitzvah, and I parlayed officially becoming a man into telling my father I wanted to eat cheeseburgers.

When you get there, there isn’t any there there.

The opposite of the religious fanatic is not the fanatical atheist but the gentle cynic who cares not whether there is a god or not.