Quotations

"I read once, which I loved so much, that this great physicist who won a Nobel Prize said that every day when he got home, his dad asked him not what he learned in school but his dad said, 'Did you ask any great questions today?' And I always thought, what a beautiful way to educate kids that we're excited by their questions, not by our answers and whether they can repeat our answers."

— Diane Sawyer, American journalist, born December 22, 1945

"Someone said to me: A criticism is just a really bad way of making a request. So why don't you just make the request? Why don't you just say, Could we work out this thing that makes me feel this way?"

— Diane Sawyer, American journalist, born December 22, 1945

"One day you're the statue. One day you're the pigeon."

— Diane Sawyer, American journalist, born December 22, 1945

"Faith is what I call a mind-move, a radical shift in awareness. The expression 'a leap of faith' is so true. Faith is not something we can arrive at by a careful, step-by-step process. It is not something we can square with our intellect. Faith does not make sense, nor does it feel safe. It is what takes us further after the questions that can be answered logically have been exhausted. To have faith, we must let go. Faith is like swimming the backstroke, reaching above and behind is into an unknown we cannot see. Faith is like driving forward with only the rearview mirror as a guide."

— Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, Polish-American rabbi, died July 3, 2014

"Dialogue does not happen when we are adversaries."

— Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, Polish-American rabbi, died July 3, 2014

"The awareness that we stand in the presence of the Living God is one of the most important realizations we can install in our operative consciousness. God is always present. The question is, how present are we? We want to stand in that Presence without opacity. Our work is to penetrate, in meditation and in action, to the very heart of being nokhach penei ha-Shem (Lamentations 2:19), of being truly present before God."

— Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, American rabbi, born 1914

"There is a basic notion that every soul has two 'wings'. These 'wings of the soul' are Love and Awe. When the soul is free, fresh and open, and available for inspiration, it flies on these two wings. With one wing it is hard to fly; you must have two."

— Zalman Schachter-Shalomi,  Polish-American rabbi, born August 28, 1914

"DNA has shown, whether it's the death penalty or not, there are flaws with eyewitness testimony, false confessions and crime labs. We know many more people have been wrongfully convicted than anyone thought."

— Barry Scheck, American lawyer, born September 19, 1949

"Music does not have to be understood. It has to be listened to."

— Hermann Scherchen, German conductor, born June 21, 1891

"I am so rich that I must give myself away."

— Egon Schiele, Austrian painter, born June 12, 1890

"I was now resolved to do everything in my power to defeat the system."

— Oskar Schindler, Czech-German businessman, born April 28, 1908

"The depth of a man is a limit only he can know, should he have the courage to explore into the dark."

— Kyle Schmalenberg

"You can't have a good bullfight without a good bull."

— Julian Schnabel, American painter, born October 26, 1951

"Every Soul is a Diamond."

— Menachem Schneerson, Chabad-Lubavitcher Rebbe, born 1902