Biographer Quotes

The ones who have a voice must speak for those who are voiceless.

A church that doesn't provoke any crises, a gospel that doesn't unsettle, a word of God that doesn't get under anyone’s skin, a word of God that doesn't touch the real sin of the society in which it is being proclaimed — ​what gospel is that?

I do not believe in death without resurrection.

If they kill me I will rise again in the people of El Salvador.

Aspire not to have more, but to be more.

When the church hears the cry of the oppressed it cannot but denounce the social structures that give rise to and perpetuate the misery from which the cry arises.

Trust yourself. Think for yourself. Act for yourself. Speak for yourself. Be yourself. Imitation is suicide.

Success doesn't come to you, you go to it.

We are workers, not master builders, ministers, not messiahs.

We are prophets of a future not our own.

You can tell the people that if they succeed in killing me, that I forgive and bless those who do it. Hopefully, they will realize they are wasting their time. A bishop will die, but the church of God, which is the people, will never perish.

There is no dichotomy between man and God's image.

Whoever tortures a human being, whoever abuses a human being, whoever outrages a human being, abuses God's image.

Let us not tire of preaching love; it is the force that will overcome the world. Let us not tire of preaching love. Though we see that waves of violence succeed in drowning the fire of Christian love, love must win out; it is the only thing that can.

Beautiful is the moment in which we understand that we are no more than an instrument of God; we live only as long as God wants us to live; we can only do as much as God makes us able to do; we are only as intelligent as God would have us be.

When we speak for the poor, please note that we do not take sides with one social class. What we do is invite all social classes, rich and poor, without distinction, saying to everyone let us take seriously the cause of the poor as though it were our own.

Peace is the product of justice and love.

Let me tell you how to love all equally.

Do not demand anything of those you love. If you make demands, some will give you more and some less. In that case you will love more those who give you more and less those who give you less. Thus your love will not be the same for all. You will not be able to love all impartially.

Mr. Meant-to has a friend, his name is Didn't-Do. Have you met them? They live together in a house called Never-Win. And I am told that it is haunted by the Ghost of Might-have-Been.

When someone is taught the joy of learning, it becomes a life-long process that never stops, a process that creates a logical individual. That is the challenge and joy of teaching.

Excellence is not an act but a habit. The things you do the most are the things you will do best.

Determination and perseverance move the world;

thinking that others will do it for you is a sure way to fail.

Students do not need to be labeled or measured any more than they are.

They don't need more Federal funds, grants, and gimmicks. What they need from us is common sense, dedication, and bright, energetic teachers who believe that all children are achievers and who take personally the failure of any one child.

The happiness of the world is transitory.

The less you become attached to the world, the more you enjoy peace of mind.

Even when they call us mad, when they call us subversives and communists and all the epithets they put on us, we know we only preach the subversive witness of the Beatitudes, which have turned everything upside down.

Don't try to fix the students, fix ourselves first.

The good teacher makes the poor student good and the good student superior. When our students fail, we, as teachers, too, have failed.

The absolute desire of 'having more' encourages the selfishness that destroys communal bonds among the children of God. It does so because the idolatry of riches prevents the majority from sharing the goods that the Creator has made for all, and in the all-possessing minority it produces an exaggerated pleasure in these goods.

"Peace is not the product of terror or fear.

Peace is not the silence of cemeteries. Peace is not the silent result of violent repression. Peace is the generous, tranquil contribution of all to the good of all. Peace is dynamism. Peace is generosity. It is right and it is duty."

If you don't give anything, don't expect anything.

Success is not coming to you, you must come to it.

God cannot be realized without love. Yes, sincere love.

I will not tire of declaring that if we really want an effective end to violence we must remove the violence that lies at the root of all violence: structural violence, social injustice, exclusion of citizens from the management of the country, repression. All this is what constitutes the primal cause, from which the rest flows naturally.

There is a brilliant child locked inside every student.

Don't be afraid. Human birth is full of suffering and one has to endure everything patiently, taking the Name of God. None, not even God in human form can escape the sufferings of the body and mind.

Even the impossible becomes possible through devotion.

When one realizes God, He grants knowledge and illumination from within;

one knows it oneself. In the fullness of one's spiritual realization one will find that He who resides in one's heart, resides in the hearts of others as well - the oppressed, the persecuted, the untouchable, and the outcast.

He grows daily more capable of following any inspiration without technical effort, and also of letting inspiration come to him through meticulous observation.

Kids don't fail. Teachers fail, school systems fail. The people who teach children that they are failures, they are the problem.

The good teacher makes the poor student good and the good student superior.

If you trace up Masonry, through all its Orders, till you come to the grand tip-top head Mason of the World, you will discover that the dread individual and the Chief of the Society of Jesus [i.e., the Superior General of the Jesuit Order] are one and the same person.

As you smell the fragrance of a flower by handing it or the smell of sandalwood by rubbing it against a stone, so you obtain spiritual awakening by constantly thinking of God.

One must be patient like the earth. What iniquities are being perpetuated on her! Yet she quietly endures them all.

There is no treasure equal to contentment and no virtue equal to fortitude.

The church would betray its own love for God and its fidelity to the gospel if it stopped being . . . a defender of the rights of the poor . . . a humanizer of every legitimate struggle to achieve a more just society . . . that prepares the way for the true reign of God in history.

My son, forbearance is a great virtue; there's no other like it.

We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.

The difference between a great soul and an ordinary man is this: the latter weeps while leaving this body, whereas the former laughs. Death seems to him a mere play.

What an illusion Mahamaya has conjured up! Here is this infinite world, and what one claims as his possession will be left behind at death. Still men cannot understand this simple truth.

I cannot change the world, but I do not have to conform.

Liberation that raises a cry against others is no true liberation.

Liberation that means revolutions of hate and violence and takes away lives of others or abases the dignity of others cannot be true liberty.

If you can't make a mistake, you can't make anything.

Everything, husband, wife, or even the body, is only illusory.

These are all shackles of illusion. Unless you can free yourself from these bondages, you will never be able to go to the other shore of the world.

The more obstinately you try to learn how to shoot the arrow for the sake of hitting the goal, the less you will succeed in the one and the further the other will recede. What stands in your way is that you have a much too willful will. You think that what you do not do yourself does not happen.

Peace is generosity. It is right and it is duty.

Pray to God with tears in your eyes whenever you want illumination or find yourself faced with any doubt or difficulty. The Lord will remove all your impurities, assuage your mental anguish, and give you enlightenment.