I did not want to reject religion as nonsense because life seemed to have no ultimate purpose without it and most of the good people I knew were Christians.

If religion had a good purpose then man would have created something great. But we're man: we mess up everything. We mess up nature. We mess up God. We take what is given to us and make it into what we think it should be.

Prayer is aligning ourselves with the purposes of God.

The people at the record company had asked me if I could write a song about my life my relationship with God and where I'm from. Well I can't write a song on purpose my songs come in a moment of inspiration or desperation.

Every relationship that we have in our lives - our contact with each person place and event - serves a very special if yet to be realized purpose: They are mirrors that can serve to show us things about ourselves that can be realized in no other way.

It can have a secular purpose and have a relationship to God because God was presumed to be both over the state and the church and separation of church and state was never meant to separate God from government.

The Bible is the only credible guide either as to the real relationship between man and the earth and the great Creator of both or concerning the purpose of the creation of both.

When I'm working I'm very purposeful and everything else gets out of focus. Something I've had to work on together with my wife is how to acknowledge each other in the midst of this and keep the relationship going.

It is not our purpose to become each other it is to recognize each other to learn to see the other and honor him for what he is.

Whatever else it was Adolf Hitler's short-lived regime was also a colossal industrial process by which the wealth and productive power of much of Europe was wrenched from its normal purposes and converted into a machine for killing.

I try to deal with the complexities of power and social life but as far as the visual presentation goes I purposely avoid a high degree of difficulty.

Use power to help people. For we are given power not to advance our own purposes nor to make a great show in the world nor a name. There is but one just use of power and it is to serve people.

The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community against his will is to prevent harm to others. His own good either physical or moral is not sufficient warrant.

The purpose of getting power is to be able to give it away.

I truly believe that everything that we do and everyone that we meet is put in our path for a purpose. There are no accidents we're all teachers - if we're willing to pay attention to the lessons we learn trust our positive instincts and not be afraid to take risks or wait for some miracle to come knocking at our door.

With what all these people are saying do you think that anybody wants to be around me? They all think that I did this on purpose? That I knew that I was positive for so many years? I feel now that I'm going to be attacked if anybody sees me or if I go to the office.

George W. Bush brought a lot of minorities into his administration which was a positive thing and they had some issues that they wanted to press but 9/11 really gave them direction. It gave them a purpose.

African art is functional it serves a purpose. It's not a dormant. It's not a means to collect the largest cheering section. It should be healing a source a joy. Spreading positive vibrations.

There is no sea more dangerous than the ocean of practical politics none in which there is more need of good pilotage and of a single unfaltering purpose when the waves rise high.

War should be the politics of last resort. And when we go to war we should have a purpose that our people understand and support.

He too serves a certain purpose who only stands and cheers.

I certainly can't speak for all cultures or all societies but it's clear that in America poetry serves a very marginal purpose. It's not part of the cultural mainstream.

Science and art or by the same token poetry and prose differ from one another like a journey and an excursion. The purpose of the journey is its goal the purpose of an excursion is the process.

Is there any purpose to translating poetry? A poem does not contain information of importance like a signpost or a warning notice.